Canada is becoming ever more reliant on imported American oil. A new announcement from the country’s energy regulator implies establishing a counter-intuitive spin on the raging debate regarding cross-border pipelines and energy independence.
The United States produced almost four out of every five barrels of imported crude in 2020, a year when the coronavirus epidemic seriously dented world demand for fossil fuels. The latest data from the Canada Energy Regulator confirms.
Some 77 percent of Canadian imports originated from the U.S., up from 72 percent in 2019 and a small six percent in 2010, before a tense spike in domestic American oil and gas production over the latest decade.
Close watchers of Canada-U.S. trade flows, especially those in the energy sector, might not be overly shocked by how much American crude oil has been traveling north in recent years.
The U.S. received a significant 96 percent of Canadian oil exports last year, the bulk of it heavy crude, more further than half of it to the U.S. Midwest, which has been spot zero for pipeline arguments for almost all of the latest 15 years.
But an extensive surge in U.S. oil and gas production, fed in part by new extraction technology like fracking and horizontal drilling, has made it a valuable source of feedstock for refineries in both countries, Christie said.
While foreign oil has long been a member of the Canadian energy mix, the latest numbers — along with the proportion of imports from the U.S. — casts the continuing controversy over pipeline links within the two countries in a surprising new light.
On his opening day in the Oval Office, U.S. President Joe Biden cut the Keystone XL pipeline expansion, which would have carried an additional 800,000 barrels a day of Alberta oilsands bitumen to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Michigan is currently in court with Enbridge Inc. over Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s attempts to close down Line 5. This cross-border energy link crosses the Great Lakes beneath the ecologically sensible Straits of Mackinac.
The pipeline is generally charged by its supporters as a significant infrastructure that supports vital refineries in Sarnia, Ont., and provides more than half of the propane required to heat homes in Michigan alone, to say nothing of neighboring states.
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