Canadian Energy Centre
Indigenous leaders meet G7 diplomats to make case for Canadian LNG
Indigenous leaders meet with U.S. ambassador to Canada David Cohen. Photo courtesy Energy for a Secure Future
From Shawn Logan of the Canadian Energy Centre Ltd.
‘Every official had a real desire to really understand Indigenous sentiment around resource development’
As G7 leaders left Hiroshima, Japan last month, they made a significant admission that liquefied natural gas (LNG) is a critical fuel to help reduce dependence on Russian energy, and that increased natural gas investment is important.
“In this context, we stress the important role that increased deliveries of LNG can play and acknowledge that investment in the sector can be appropriate in response to the current crisis and to address potential gas market shortfalls provoked by the crisis,” wrote the G7 in their final communique last week.
The decision comes just weeks after a small group of Indigenous leaders went to Ottawa to meet face-to-face with diplomats from some of the world’s top economies, convened by Energy for a Secure Future.
Their message to the world was simple: Indigenous communities in Canada can and should be partners at the table when it comes to developing and sharing our country’s vast natural resources. And it may have resonated.
For John Desjarlais, executive director of the Indigenous Resource Network, the vote of confidence for LNG is music to his ears.
“I’d like to think that we were heard – we met with some pretty influential people and heard some of the right things,” he said.
“For them to make that commitment is a big deal, and certainly a difference from some of the early indicators before the G7.”
Tapped earlier this year as the new executive director of the Indigenous Resource Network, Desjarlais found himself in Ottawa with other Indigenous leaders in April, meeting with diplomatic representatives from Canada’s G7 partners – Germany, France, Japan and the United States – as well as delegations from Poland and India.
Desjarlais said he was surprised just how open diplomats were to the notion that Indigenous communities in Canada can be key players in the global energy marketplace.
“What a whirlwind. It was inspiring, especially speaking with the ambassadors,” Desjarlais said of the two-day diplomatic blitz that both challenged perceptions and paved a path for Indigenous voices to play a greater role on the international stage.
“Every official had a real desire to really understand Indigenous sentiment around resource development. There was a sincere desire to learn from our perspective.”
First Nations and Metis have emerged as key partners in Canadian resource projects, particularly the country’s nascent LNG industry.
Global demand for reliable and responsibly produced LNG has continued to grow, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year thrusting it into even greater prominence. The leaders of Canada’s G7 partners Germany and Japan both came to Canada last year to make direct appeals for more Canadian LNG – they left with no firm commitments.
Desjarlais and a group of fellow Indigenous leaders who are on the advisory council for Energy for a Secure Future – a non-partisan coalition of business, labour and Indigenous representatives – outlined their vision for how Canada and First Nations can help be a solution in the drive for increased global energy security, while also helping lower emissions by providing a cleaner alternative to coal.
Crystal Smith, chief councillor of the Haisla Nation on B.C.’s coast, said the first step is dispelling the notion that Indigenous people oppose resource development in Canada.
“When Europeans, Asians and Americans think of Canada’s Indigenous peoples, they often think we oppose all energy development,” she said during a press conference to mark April’s diplomatic meetings.
“We aren’t victims of development. Increasingly we are partners and even owners in major projects.”
The Haisla Nation has a 50 per cent ownership stake in the proposed $3-billion Cedar LNG project, which was granted regulatory approval earlier this year, and is expected to begin operations in 2027.
It marks the largest Indigenous-owned infrastructure project in Canadian history, as well as the first Indigenous-owned LNG terminal in the world.
Karen Ogen, CEO of the First Nations LNG Alliance, said it’s projects like Cedar LNG and others currently under development that will not only help Indigenous communities achieve prosperity, but help the global community in the quest for vital energy security.
“LNG development has provided immediate- and medium-termed opportunities to lift thousands of Indigenous people and our communities out of inter-generational poverty,” she said.
“We are determined to develop our resources in a socially and environmentally responsible way. We want to work with Canada and our allies in the G7 to bring urgency to the development and export of Canadian LNG.”
Beyond Cedar LNG, dozens of First Nations and Métis communities have entered into equity ownership agreements in pipelines, LNG facilities and carbon capture and storage projects, among others.
The Ksi Lisims LNG project, a joint venture with the Nisga’a Nation in northern B.C., has been granted a 40-year export licence from the Canada Energy Regulator, while in Atlantic Canada the Miawpukek First Nation is a part-owner of the proposed export project LNG Newfoundland and Labrador.
Large consortiums representing Indigenous communities have also acquired or are looking to acquire stakes in major pipeline projects including Coastal GasLink, Trans Mountain, and several oil sands pipelines.
According to Desjarlais, the Ottawa summit proved to be a fruitful meeting of the minds. He said it could signal a more important role for Indigenous communities both as more equal resource partners in Canada, but on the world stage as well. The group has been asked to meet again in June with U.S. ambassador David Cohen.
“I never thought it would accelerate to this point – it’s accelerating so fast,” he said.
“Ownership is reconciliation. There’s a whole cascade of benefits that come from these projects everywhere.”
From the Canadian Energy Centre
Q&A with Mike Verney, executive vice-president, McDaniel & Associates
New analysis commissioned by the Alberta Energy Regulator has increased the province’s natural gas reserves by 440 per cent, bumping Canada into the global top 10.
Alberta’s oil reserves – already fourth in the world – also increased by seven billion barrels.
The report was conducted by Calgary-based consultancy McDaniel & Associates. Executive vice-president Mike Verney explains what it means.
CEC: What are “reserves” and why do they matter?
Verney: Reserves are commercial quantities of oil and gas to be recovered in the future. They are key indicators of future production potential.
For companies, that’s a way of representing the future value of their operations. And for countries, it’s important to showcase the runway they have in terms of the future of their oil and gas.
Some countries that have exploited a lot of their resource in the past have low reserves remaining. Canada is in a position where we still have a lot of meat on the bone in terms of those remaining quantities.
CEC: How long has it been since Alberta’s oil and gas reserves were comprehensively assessed?
Verney: Our understanding is the last fully comprehensive review was over a decade ago.
CEC: Does improvement in technology and innovation increase reserves?
Verney: Technological advancements and innovation play a crucial role in increasing reserves. New technologies such as advanced drilling techniques (e.g., hydraulic fracturing, horizontal drilling), enhanced seismic imaging and improved extraction methods enable companies to discover and access previously inaccessible reserves.
As these reserves get developed, the evolution of technology helps companies develop them better and better every year.
CEC: Why have Alberta’s natural gas reserves increased?
Verney: Most importantly, hydraulic fracturing has unlocked material volume, and that’s one of the principal reasons why the new gas estimate is so much higher than what it was in the past.
The performance of the wells that are being drilled has also gotten better since the last comprehensive study.
The Montney competes with every American tight oil and gas play, so we’re recognizing the future potential of that with the gas reserves that are being assigned.
In addition, operators continue to expand the footprint of the Alberta Deep Basin.
CEC: Why have Alberta’s oil reserves increased?
Verney: We discovered over two billion barrels of oil reserves associated with multilateral wells, which is a new technology. In a multilateral well, you drill one vertical well to get to the zone and then once you hit the zone you drill multiple legs off of that one vertical spot. It has been a very positive game-changer.
Performance in the oil sands since the last comprehensive update has also gone better than expected. We’ve got 22 thermal oil sands projects that are operating, and in general, expectations in terms of recovery are higher than they were a decade ago.
Oil sands production has grown substantially in the past decade, up 70 per cent, from two million to 3.4 million barrels per day. The growth of several projects has increased confidence in the commercial viability of developing additional lands.
CEC: What are the implications of Alberta’s reserves in terms of the province’s position as a world energy supplier?
Verney: We’re seeing LNG take off in the United States, and we’re seeing lots of demand from data centers. Our estimate is that North America will need at least 30 billion cubic feet per day of more gas supply in the next few years, based on everything that’s been announced. That is a very material number, considering the United States’ total natural gas production is a little over 100 billion cubic feet per day.
In terms of oil, since the shale revolution in 2008 there’s been massive growth from North America, and the rest of the world hasn’t grown oil production. We’re now seeing that the tight plays in the U.S. aren’t infinite and are showing signs of plateauing.
Specifically, when we look at the United States’ largest oil play, the Permian, it has essentially been flat at 5.5 million barrels per day since December 2023. Flat production from the Permian is contrary to the previous decade, where we saw tight oil production grow by half a million barrels per day per year.
Oil demand has gone up by about a million barrels a day per year for the past several decades, and at this point we do expect that to continue, at the very least in the near term.
Given the growing demand for oil and the stagnation in supply growth since the shale revolution, it’s expected that Alberta’s oil sands reserves will become increasingly critical. As global oil demand continues to rise, and with limited growth in production from other sources, oil sands reserves will be relied upon more heavily.
From The Canadian Energy Centre
By Will Gibson
‘We want Americans to stand up for our supply’
A lawyer by training, Gary Mar is also a keen student of history. And he recommends Canadians look at what happened when past U.S. administrations imposed tariffs on imports before jumping to add costs to Canadian energy.
“President Richard Nixon imposed a 10 per cent tariff in 1971 and withdrew it after a few months because it caused so much pain for American consumers,” says Mar, CEO of the Canada West Foundation, who served as Alberta’s trade representative in Washington from 2007 to 2011.
“Canadians and their governments need to be patient. Any tariffs on energy will be passed on to consumers in the United States. We shouldn’t let the president off the hook for raising the price to American drivers by putting more duties on energy we export,” he says.
“We want Americans to stand up for our supply, not displace the anger with President Trump for raising prices with anger towards Canadians.”
A major U.S. supplier
The U.S. imports more than four million barrels of oil per day from Canada, or about one out of every five barrels the country consumes. Most Canadian imports are destined for refineries in the U.S. Midwest including Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio.
About 99 per cent of natural gas imports into the United States also come from Canada. Natural gas imports flow primarily to Idaho, North Dakota, Minnesota and Montana, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Trump tariffs
Nixon put tariffs in place in an attempt to weaken the U.S. dollar against foreign currencies and strengthen U.S. exports.
Mar, who served as cabinet minister in the Klein and Stelmach governments from 1993 to 2007, sees Trump’s tariffs as aimed to repatriate manufacturing and jobs to America.
“President Trump made this explicitly clear…if you want to sell manufactured goods in the United States, you need to move your factories here,” says Mar.
“But Canadian oil and natural gas are key inputs that help U.S. manufacturing. We ship the products or partially refined products that support manufacturing of finished products in the United States. Tariffs will raise those costs for U.S. manufacturers and ultimately American consumers.”
A divisive rerun of the National Energy Program?
Mar’s former cabinet colleague Ted Morton agrees Canada needs to exercise patience and caution in any response to U.S. tariffs.
Morton, who served as an Alberta cabinet minister from 2006 to 2012, strongly disagrees with the idea of placing countervailing tariffs on energy exports to the United States. Morton casts it as a divisive rerun of then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s controversial National Energy Program in the early 1980s.
Energy export tariffs “would be an attempt to revive Liberal Party support from disillusioned voters in Ontario and Quebec,” he says.
“The biggest loser in Trump’s new tariff war will be Ontario due to the integration of the auto sector between the U.S. and Canada. It’s simple political arithmetic. Ottawa could collect $4 or $5 billion by taxing energy exports in western Canada and send that money to prop up struggling industries in Ontario and Quebec,” Morton says.
“Ontario and Quebec combined have a total of 199 MPs, more than enough to form a majority government. It’s the ‘screw the West and take the rest’ strategy. It’s how the Liberals won the 1980 federal election, and they could try it again.”
Legal and constitutional precedents
And while imposing export tariffs on Canadian energy could be politically popular in central Canada, Morton suggests the action would not withstand a legal challenge thanks to legal and constitutional precedents set by former Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed.
“Peter Lougheed left future Alberta premiers with some very effective legal weapons. His government successfully challenged the constitutionality of Trudeau’s export tax on natural gas. He then teamed up with the other western premiers to negotiate a new constitutional amendment that affirms provincial jurisdiction over the development and conservation of natural resources,” Morton says.
“Premier Danielle Smith should win any constitutional challenge if the federal government tries to impose an export tariff on oil or natural gas.”
Morton, like Mar, also counselled patience in responding to tariffs because “Trump’s tariffs on Canadian energy will punish American consumers more than Canadians.”
The national interest
David Yager, who has studied and analyzed energy policy for more than 40 years, agrees tariffs on energy have the potential to drive a wedge between Alberta and the rest of the country in the same way the National Energy Program did.
“The dynamic definition of national interest is what I struggle with. Going back several decades, it was in the national interest to get oil and gas across Canada so there was a drive to build pipelines east and west,” says Yager, a consultant who also serves as a special advisor to Premier Smith.
“Today, the national interest has flipped again, and energy exports are now a source of revenue to save the ‘real’ Canada, which is central Canada. It’s the same kind of logic that has seen the emissions cap on oil and gas as well as the carbon tax.”
If Canada wants to retaliate, Yager recommends putting a duty on the 1.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas imported by Ontario and Quebec from the northeastern United States.
“That would be the appropriate tit for tat response,” Yager says.
“You could build a nice pool of capital and clobber U.S. producers without driving a wedge between Alberta and the rest of the country.”
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