Canada And The US May Become The Next OPEC

Move over Saudi Arabia?

With a series of amazing shale oil and natural gas finds in North America, it is now possible (if bureaucrats will allow it) for both Canada and the United States to become energy exporters in the next fifty years. And that reality is being discussed for the first time at the annual meeting of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council. Asian investors are already investing heavily in North American energy projects, especially Canada’s oil sands. As Canada’s Financial Post puts it, “Asian countries are eager to move away from coal and into more environmentally benign natural gas. There concerns about nuclear power following Japan’s Fukushima disaster. There are continuing and growing worries about dependence on Middle East suppliers, who are charging them very high prices.” The idea is to build natural gas liquefaction facilities on the West Coast or in the Gulf of Mexico, and shipping the stuff by tanker.

This also creates a dilemma for environmentalists. They are strongly opposed to natural gas fracking and projects like the Keystone Pipeline to bring Canadian oil from sands to the United States. But that is a heck of a lot more clean that burning coal in Asia. If they want to buy our abundant natural gas to replace their coal, what is Greenpeace going to say? Keep burning coal?