Canada’s efforts to diversify its energy exports away from the United States go through boosting sales oil, gas, and uranium to the major energy market India, Canadian Energy Minister Tim Hodgson said at a conference in India on Tuesday.
Canada has the opportunity to work with India now that it sees its high dependence on the U.S. market as a “strategic blunder,” the minister told the Indian Energy Week conference in Goa today, as carried by Reuters.
“If Canada wants to be an energy superpower, we need to be trading our energy and natural resources with one of the world’s largest energy markets: India,” Hodgson posted on X, referring to the Canadian government’s goal to make the country an energy superpower.
“That’s why, this week, I’m in India for trip of firsts: Canada’s first federal ministerial presence at India Energy Week and the first Canada–India energy dialogue in eight years,” the Canadian minister added.
“As major projects are being built at home, we’re building relationships abroad that will allow us to sell our products worldwide and carve out a new path for a stronger, more sovereign Canada,” Hodgson concluded.
Canada does not export LNG to India currently, after launching last year its first-ever export project, LNG Canada.
But apparently Canada wants to boost exports to Asia from its West Coast, and India, which will drive global oil and gas demand in the foreseeable future, is a key export target.
“We’re now building pipelines to the West Coast. We have three pipelines built here, looking at building more,” Hodgson said at the Indian forum on Tuesday.
Canada has just signed a major energy and trade partnership with China, as it moves away from hostilities from the Trump Administration.
Now Canada and India are expected to pledge more Canadian exports of crude, LNG, and LPG to India, and more Indian fuel exports to Canada, according to a draft joint statement on energy seen by Bloomberg News.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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