OREANDA-NEWS. July 18, 2011. Canadian Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said the nation will seek to grow energy sales to China, and challenge environmentalists in the U.S. and Europe, to sustain demand for the world’s largest reserves of oil outside the Middle East.

Oliver, in a telephone interview with Bloomberg News, said he plans a global campaign to challenge “exaggerated rhetoric” about the environmental impact of Alberta’s oil sands. Canada also must build new markets for its oil, which is now shipped primarily to the U.S., he said.

“The oil sands are enormously important to Canada,” Oliver said. “They are huge, they are forecast to produce trillions of dollars in economic activity in this country, and they’re part of our future prosperity and part of our becoming an energy superpower.”

Canada is relying on business investment to help lead its recovery, and energy companies have been the main driver of corporate spending over the past year. Canadian publicly traded oil and gas companies spent CAD18.5 billion (USD19.3 billion) on investment in the latest quarterly filings, up from CAD14.5 billion from the same quarter a year earlier, according to Bloomberg data.

Internationally, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has promoted Canada as an “energy superpower,” pointing to its political stability in a bid to fend off concerns in the U.S. about the environmental impact of the oil sands, which require extensive upgrading and refining in a process that generates more greenhouse-gas emissions than conventional crude.

Biggest U.S. Supplier

Canada is the biggest foreign supplier of oil to the U.S., and supplies the country with almost a quarter of its crude imports, twice what Saudi Arabia does.

Oliver said he will make trips to Washington and New York to promote the oil sands as a secure source of energy. The tour could also take him to China and Europe, he said.

“Oil is oil and heavy oil is heavy oil, and we have to look at what the emissions are and what’s being done about them and make comparisons on the facts,” Oliver said. “There’s heavy oil in California. There’s bitumen in the oil sands.”

While emphasizing that the U.S. is a “great customer,” Oliver also said Canada needs to increase oil exports to China.

“We’ve got to go where the market is, and diversification of customers is a pretty fundamental economic construct,” Oliver said. That is “something we want to do and we have to do,” he added.

He said a key part of the country’s Asian export plans is a pipeline proposed by Enbridge Inc., which will carry 525,000 barrels per day from Alberta to a port in British Columbia. The project is being reviewed by the National Energy Board, which regulates pipeline projects.

Keystone Approval
Canada’s push to improve its energy image comes as TransCanada Corp. (TRP) awaits approval from the U.S. State Department for the Keystone XL pipeline that is meant to become a major route for transporting crude oil from Canada’s oil sands to the U.S. Gulf of Mexico coast.

The oil sands, which contain a thick, sticky substance called bitumen, hold nearly 173 billion barrels of crude oil, according to producer estimates.

Oliver said the Canadian government will continue to lobby President Barack Obama’s administration for approval of the pipeline, which will run from Alberta through Saskatchewan, Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

“It’s very good for the United States, too, because it enhances energy security, which is a huge issue for the Americans, particularly now, in this rather troubled international political environment,” he said.