Can Canada become an energy superpower?

Summary

Business Daily – "Can Canada become an energy superpower?"

Date: October 30, 2025
Host: Sam Grouet, BBC World Service
Theme: Exploring whether Canada, under Prime Minister Mark Carney’s leadership and amid shifting global geopolitics, can achieve true "energy superpower" status—with a focus on LNG, oil, economic growth, and the complex environmental and political challenges ahead.

---

Overview

This episode investigates Canada’s ambition to become an “energy superpower” by doubling its energy exports, particularly liquefied natural gas (LNG) and oil, and diversifying beyond the U.S. market. Bringing together politicians, industry experts, academics, and critics, the episode explores economic promises, technological advances, environmental concerns, and domestic as well as geopolitical obstacles.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Canada’s Ambition to Become an "Energy Superpower"

• Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Vision
  • Openly declares: "We're an energy superpower unabashedly. Energy superpower. We have the third largest reserves of oil. We have the fourth largest reserves of LNG." (01:08)
  • Concrete target: "We will be up to 50 million tonnes annually of LNG by the end of this decade." (01:23)
  • Broader plan: Doubling non-U.S. exports in the next 10 years—"$300 billion of additional exports. Most of that is going to come from Asia." (02:14)
• Strategic Infrastructure
  • Five major projects: LNG terminals, nuclear power, critical minerals—all coordinated by a "major projects office." (02:37)

2. The LNG Expansion – Opportunity and Rationale

• First LNG Exports to Asia
  • Canada started exporting LNG by ship to Asia in July for the first time, a pivotal shift from traditionally sending all gas by pipeline to the U.S. (03:32, 07:17)
• Economic Rationale
  • Heather Exner Perrot: "The more that you can produce, the more the government can charge royalties... produce high-paying jobs, attract a lot of foreign investment... LNG and investment in natural gas is one of those [bright spots] where you're really seeing growth..." (04:09)
• Technology & Global Markets
  • Explains evolution of gas liquefaction enabling global shipping, noting Canada’s late entrance to the LNG export market but rapid catch-up. (04:47)

3. The U.S.-Canada Relationship: Risk and Wake-Up Call

• Dependence on U.S. Markets
  • Historically, 99% of Canada’s oil and gas exports went to the U.S. (06:45)
• Turning Point: U.S. Tariffs
  • Amanda Stevenson: "We saw this really kind of light bulb moment... with the inauguration of President Trump and he began threatening tariffs on the Canadian economy..." (06:09)
• Strategic Reorientation
  • Move towards Asian markets as response to U.S. protectionism and political uncertainty (07:00).

4. Environmental Critique and the "Green" Argument

• Contestation over LNG & Oil
  • Amanda Stevenson: "Natural gas is a fossil fuel... its production creates emissions, particularly in the form of methane, which is very harmful for the atmosphere." (08:00)
  • Environmentalists argue that LNG expansion undermines climate goals. (08:13)
  • Heather Exner Perrot posits: "It is pretty much the lowest GHG intense LNG in the world... if you have to use LNG and you're concerned about the environment, the best place to get it from is Canada." (08:30–08:54)
  • Canadian LNG’s lower emissions attributed to quality of resource, significant hydroelectricity used in liquefaction, and stringent methane regulations. (08:54)

5. Alberta, Oil, and the Pipeline Debate

• Oil’s Economic Role
  • Alberta is the core of oil production; oil & gas sector made up ~10% of GDP in 2023 and supports 450,000 jobs. (10:25, 11:24)
• Pipeline Politics
  • Expansion of pipelines, e.g., Trans Mountain, significantly impacts GDP.
  • Alberta Premier and business leaders are pushing for new pipelines to access Asian markets, while the official federal pipeline list is narrower than some would like. (11:03, 12:03)
  • Expansion faces vocal environmental and Indigenous opposition: "Any oil pipeline that has been built in this country... has attracted environmental opposition, has attracted protests from Indigenous communities." (13:45)

6. What Makes a Country an "Energy Superpower"?

• Competing Models
  • Prof. Benjamin Sovikul: "To me, I think it's a mix of domestic energy security and export strength. So a superpower is someone who is using low carbon forms of energy themselves but also really creating a global trading market, a competitive market for them." (15:21)
  • Cites U.S., Saudi Arabia, Russia, and especially China as leading superpowers due to vast reserves or leadership in green technology. (15:47–16:33)
  • Compares Canada’s dilemma with Norway’s—profiting from oil and gas while reinvesting in domestic decarbonization. (16:46)

7. Major Challenges to Superpower Status

• Price Volatility
  • "If you go look at the price of crude oil... for the past 30 years, it's a roller coaster... very few countries or companies can manage that level of volatility." (17:06)
• Political, Environmental & Social Hurdles
  • To grow energy exports, Canada must navigate climate concerns, pipeline protests, Indigenous rights, and shifting political winds—balance is vital. (17:43)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Prime Minister Mark Carney:

  • "We're an energy superpower unabashedly." (01:08)
  • "We will be up to 50 million tonnes annually of LNG by the end of this decade." (01:23)

• Heather Exner Perrot:

  • "LNG and investment in natural gas is one of those [bright spots] where you're really seeing growth." (04:09)
  • "We've been quite satisfied about being an energy colony of the United States... now we're starting to look a little bit abroad." (07:00)
  • "It is pretty much the lowest GHG intense LNG in the world." (08:30)

• Amanda Stevenson:

  • "Natural gas is a fossil fuel... its production creates emissions, particularly in the form of methane, which is very harmful for the atmosphere." (08:00)
  • "Oil pipelines are not unanimously supported in Canada. Far from it..." (13:45)

• Deborah Yedlin (Calgary Chamber of Commerce):

  • "We stand on oil reserves valued at over $9 trillion." (10:44)
  • "Having said that, I think what everybody in this province and in this city... what we're hearing from the Prime Minister... we have the third largest reserves of oil and the fourth largest reserves of natural gas in the world. Why wouldn't you have developed them?" (12:03)

• Prof. Benjamin Sovikul:

  • "A superpower is someone who is using low carbon forms of energy themselves but also really creating a global trading market." (15:21)
  • "China... is set to become already the world's leading exporter of multiple green technologies." (16:33)
  • "There are really big challenges to Canada even becoming just an energy superpower, and they all revolve around oil and gas." (17:06)

---

Important Timestamps

• 01:08: Carney’s bold declaration of Canada as an energy superpower
• 03:32: Canada’s first LNG export to Asia
• 06:09: U.S. tariffs trigger Canadian pivot to Asia
• 08:00–08:54: Environmental critique vs. Canada’s “green” LNG claims
• 10:25: Energy sector’s economic significance
• 12:03: Pipeline politics and Alberta’s push
• 13:45: Indigenous and environmental opposition to pipelines
• 15:21–17:06: Energy superpower criteria and Canada's strategic crossroads

---

Conclusion

The episode presents a nuanced examination: Canada’s resource abundance and infrastructure position it well to expand as an energy exporter. Yet, balancing economic opportunity with environmental responsibility, Indigenous rights, volatile geopolitics, and shifting global energy demands presents profound challenges. Whether Canada achieves true superpower status—let alone a sustainable, clean one—remains an open and increasingly urgent question.

Transcript

[Sam Grouet]

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.

[Ray Winstone]

Hello, it's Ray Winstone. I'm here to tell you about my podcast on BBC Radio 4, History's Toughest Heroes. I got stories about the pioneers, the rebels, the outcasts who define tough. And that was the first time that anybody ever ran a car up that fast with no tires on. It almost feels like your eyeballs are going to come out of your head. Tough enough for you? Subscribe to History's Toughest Heroes wherever you get your podcast.

[Sam Grouet]

Hello and welcome to Canada's largest port and today's Business daily from the BBC World Service. I'm Sam Grouet in Vancouver on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Ahead of me, there are giant orange cranes stacking shipping containers. And in the distance, several giant cargo ships which every year leave from here carrying lumber, grain and minerals. But increasingly, what's fueling this port and the country's ambitions is energy.

[Prime Minister Mark Carney]

We're an energy superpower unabashedly. Energy superpower. We have the third largest reserves of oil. We have the fourth largest reserves of lng.

[Sam Grouet]

The plan from Prime Minister Mark Carney includes doubling exports of liquefied natural gas, or LNG.

[Prime Minister Mark Carney]

We will be up to 50 million tonnes annually of LNG by the end of this decade.

[Sam Grouet]

Today we we take a look at what makes an energy superpower, the environmental challenges that raises and what happens when your biggest customer decides to go their own way.

[Ray Winstone]

You know, we just don't need their product.

[Sam Grouet]

Can Canada become an energy superpower? That's coming up on Business Daily. And it's now my great privilege to invite Prime Minister Carney up to the.

[Prime Minister Mark Carney]

Stage for his remarks.

[Sam Grouet]

Thank you very much. From the port of Vancouver, we're heading across the Pacific Ocean to Malaysia.

[Prime Minister Mark Carney]

Thank you all for showing up and I want to make it worth your while.

[Sam Grouet]

And it's here at a summit of Southeast Asian nations in late October that Canada's Prime Minister made his pitch, selling a new vision for Canada as a global energy exporter.

[Prime Minister Mark Carney]

We are going to double our non US exports over the course of the next 10 years. We think we can do it in a much shorter period of time. That's 300 billion of additional exports. Most of that is going to come from Asia.

[Sam Grouet]

In our view, it's all part of a bigger plan to boost economic growth and diversify export markets. That plan includes five major infrastructure projects from LNG to nuclear power and critical minerals, all coordinated by a new major projects office, as Canada energy correspondent for Reuters Amanda Stevenson explains.

[Amanda Stevenson]

So Mark Carney was elected in the spring on a mandate to grow the Canadian economy.

[Prime Minister Mark Carney]

I will always do my best to represent everyone who calls Canada.

[Amanda Stevenson]

And one of the things that he promised to do is to make Canada an energy superpower that could really compete on its own footing against the US Particularly with using our energy resources. This summer, Canada started up its first ever LNG export facility. So this has given Canada for the first time the ability to export LNG or liquefied natural gas to overseas markets, primarily Asia.

[Sam Grouet]

On Canada's west coast at the gateway to Asia, the Pacific Ocean, Canada is already expanding its LNG exports shipping tanker by shipping tanker. Prime Minister Carney wants Canada to double its LNG exports by expanding the country's only LNG terminal. It's one of the five major projects I mentioned earlier.

[Heather Exner Perrot]

So in general, any, any country benefits from resources by charging royalties and taxes.

[Sam Grouet]

Heather Exner Perrot from the Canadian think tank the McDonald Laurier Institute thinks LNG expansion is a no brainer.

[Heather Exner Perrot]

And so in the case of natural gas, the more that you can produce, the more units that you get, the more that the government can charge royalties to and the federal government can charge corporate taxes too. But in addition to those government revenues, you obviously produce very high paying jobs, very productive jobs, and attract a lot of foreign investment. There's not a lot of bright spots in the Canadian economy these days, but LNG and investment in natural gas is one of those where you're really seeing growth and you're really seeing foreign interest, particularly in Asia.

[Sam Grouet]

And thanks to advances in technology, natural gas can be turned into liquid and shipped directly there.

[Heather Exner Perrot]

Historically, we've only been able to transport oil. Obviously it's a liquid. You can put it on carriers, you can move it around the world. But a few decades ago, particularly the Japanese invented technologies that allowed you to liquefy with using very cold temperatures, compress those natural gas molecules into such a form that it would be logistically able to put it on a carrier and also economically feasible that you could put so much of that compressed natural gas molecules onto a carrier that you'd have quite a valuable shipment. And so Canon has been late to this game of coming to LNG exports. We ship it by pipe to the United States, but being able to liquefy it and getting across oceans is only started in Canada in July.

[Amanda Stevenson]

So Canada is the world's fourth largest oil producer. It's also the world's fifth largest natural gas producer.

[Sam Grouet]

Canada energy reporter Amanda Stevenson.

[Amanda Stevenson]

One of the challenges historically has been that geographically our exports of both of those Two commodities have gone primarily to the US before this moment, all of the natural gas that we produced was being either used domestically or the bulk of it was going south of the border via pipeline to the United States.

[Sam Grouet]

That was until January.

[Deborah Yedlin]

President Elect Trump says on the day he takes office he will impose a 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada and another 10% on China.

[Amanda Stevenson]

That was really a huge game changer for Canada as so we saw this really kind of light bulb moment that happened in January with the inauguration of President Trump and he began threatening tariffs on the Canadian economy. He was also talking about making Canada the 51st state.

[Ray Winstone]

So I think Canada is going to be a very serious contender to be our 51st state.

[Amanda Stevenson]

And those things were seen as a really existential threat. That really kind of woke Canada up to the reality of how bound our economy is to the U.S. so traditionally.

[Heather Exner Perrot]

Canada has sent, you know, 99% of its oil and natural gas to the United States.

[Sam Grouet]

Back to Heather Exner Perrot from the McDonald Laurier Institute, who has recently been in the U.S. capitol, Washington, D.C. pitching Canadian energy exports.

[Heather Exner Perrot]

We've been quite satisfied about being an energy colony of the United States and just serving their interests. And now we're starting to look a little bit abroad is how can we use these energy resources with different allies and to develop different partnerships? And the obvious answer to that is Asia.

[Sam Grouet]

Which takes us back to the west coast of Canada where in July the country shipped its first ever LNG export from here on the Pacific west coast.

[Heather Exner Perrot]

And so we have the LNG Canada terminal now operating now shipping across Asia since July. We have two other LNG terminals currently under construction and two other very significant LNG terminals that have received approval from both the British Columbia and the Canadian governments. And now we're looking for a final investment decision, hoping to secure those long term contracts with those Asian allies.

[Sam Grouet]

But much as Prime Minister Mark Carney and others want LNG to power the country's future, not everyone is convinced.

[Amanda Stevenson]

So natural gas is a fossil fuel. So its production creates emissions, particularly in the form of methane, which is very harmful for the atmosphere.

[Sam Grouet]

Canada energy correspondent Amanda Stevenson.

[Amanda Stevenson]

So a lot of environmentalists oppose LNG on the context that any increase in natural gas production is harmful for long term climate goals.

[Sam Grouet]

I put this to Heather Exner Perrot from the macdonald Laurier Institute.

[Heather Exner Perrot]

Some people are still not excited about the prospect of increasing LNG and increasing natural gas use. The world is certainly looking for more of it. We are seeing demand come from AI, from Asian population growth, economic growth, and so the argument is that if you do need to import more lng, there's no better place to get it than Canada. It is pretty much the lowest GHG intense LNG in the world.

[Sam Grouet]

GHG stands for greenhouse gas and that's.

[Heather Exner Perrot]

Owing one, to the quality of the resource, two, to the fact that we use a lot of hydroelectricity to liquefy it, and three, that Canada has very stringent methane regulations to abate flaring and that kind of a thing. So if you have to use LNG and you're concerned about the environment, the best place to get it from is Canada.

[Sam Grouet]

This is Business Daily from the BBC World Service.

[Ray Winstone]

Hello, it's Ray Winstone. I'm here to tell you about my podcast on BBC Radio 4, History's Toughest Heroes. I've got stories about the pioneers, the rebels, the outcasts who define tough. And that was the first time that anybody ever ran a car up that fast with no tires on. It almost feels like your eyeballs are going to come out of your head. Tough enough for you? Subscribe to History's Toughest Heroes wherever you get your podcast.

[Sam Grouet]

I'm Sam Grouet. Today, can Canada become an energy superpower?

[Ray Winstone]

Near Edmonton, Alberta, Canada uncovered its biggest oil pit.

[Sam Grouet]

Alberta in western Canada has long been the heart of the country's oil production.

[Ray Winstone]

And with the derrick removed, the well is blown in. This flame cleans out mud, gas and water.

[Sam Grouet]

And since 1948, when this British Pathe news report aired, oil production has only grown. As Canada energy correspondent Amanda Stevenson explains.

[Amanda Stevenson]

Canada's energy sector accounted for about 10% of the country's GDP in 2023. So this is a very significant sector for the country. And a lot of advocates of Canadian energy, including energy companies themselves, believe that that number could be even higher.

[Deborah Yedlin]

Beneath our feet here in Alberta, we stand on oil reserves valued at over $9 trillion.

[Sam Grouet]

Notably Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who wants to expand an oil pipeline to Canada's west coast and more access to to the Asian market.

[Deborah Yedlin]

What stands before us right now is a once in a generation opportunity to.

[Sam Grouet]

The pipeline has been supported by conservative opposition leader Pierre Poliev. He's been a vocal critic of Prime Minister Carney when it comes to energy.

[Prime Minister Mark Carney]

He's still not stating his support for an oil pipeline to the Pacific.

[Sam Grouet]

So there was the normal repetition of.

[Prime Minister Mark Carney]

Already broken promises with a lot of fancy million dollar words.

[Deborah Yedlin]

So my name is Deborah Yedlin. I'm the president and CEO of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce and I've been in this role for the last four and a half years. Our members include the large energy producers, the pipeline companies. You know, the energy sector, broadly speaking, employs 450,000 people directly and indirectly across the country. And so, of course, our members in Alberta and in Calgary are part of that.

[Sam Grouet]

It's perhaps not surprising that Deborah backs the expansion of oil exports from Alberta.

[Deborah Yedlin]

The reason the prime minister gave for not having an oil pipeline on that list was because there was no proponent.

[Sam Grouet]

She's talking about the list of major projects unveiled by the Prime Minister earlier this year.

[Deborah Yedlin]

And so in response to that, Premier Daniel Smith has pulled together a consortium of energy companies, oil pipeline companies, to say, we're going to study it. The government itself is going to be the proponent. There's money that's being put behind it to study this project. And the intent is that there will be something to put in front of the federal government by May of next year. Having said that, I think what everybody in this province and in this city, I mean, Calgary is Canada's energy headquarters and Calgary is Alberta's corporate headquarters. And so what we're hearing from the Prime Minister, something we have not heard, talking about Canada as an energy superpower. And when he was in Asia for the conference last week, he talked about Canada being an unabashed energy superpower because we have the third largest reserves of oil and the fourth largest reserves of natural gas in the world. Why wouldn't you have developed them?

[Sam Grouet]

Canada already has a vast network of oil and gas pipelines, including the Trans Mountain Pipeline, which transports crude oil and refined products from Alberta to the coast of British Columbia. A project to expand it was completed in May last year.

[Deborah Yedlin]

We look at what the impact of the Trans Mountain Pipeline has already been to Canada in terms of our economy. When you see that it's sort of impacted GDP by 1% in over a year of operation and still not at full capacity. You know, from an economic standpoint, this is a very, very important part of our economic opportunity. And so why not pull that lever and increase the access to new markets via pipeline?

[Sam Grouet]

But allowing the expansion of more oil exports could present difficulties for the Canadian government. Here's Amanda Stevenson again.

[Amanda Stevenson]

Oil pipelines are not unanimously supported in Canada. Far from it. Any oil pipeline that has been built in this country in recent history or has been proposed in recent history has attracted environmental opposition, has attracted protests from indigenous communities who the line would run across. So there is certainly not unanimous support for a project like that. So I think that Mark Carney, if he is interested in such a proposal, he's going to have to, you know, kind of balance that dance where you balance the interests of environmentalists and the economy. And I'm not sure you know how easy that's going to be.

[Sam Grouet]

Carney's ambitions are clear and he's not the only leader promising to turn his country into an energy superpower. We are going all out through our plan for change to make Britain a clean energy superpower.

[Ray Winstone]

I see Australia as a renewable energy superpower.

[Sam Grouet]

The voices of UK and Australian Prime Ministers Keir Starmer and Anthony Albanese. So how does a country achieve energy superpower status?

[Benjamin Sovikul]

Well, there's a huge debate here about whether a superpower is kind of someone who generates a lot of energy supply and exports or maybe it's someone who's really innovating energy demands.

[Sam Grouet]

Benjamin Sovikul is a professor of Earth and environment at Boston University in the United States and energy policy at the University of Sussex in the uk.

[Benjamin Sovikul]

To me I think it's a mix of domestic energy security and export strength. So a superpower is someone who is using low carbon forms of energy themselves but also really creating a global trading market, a competitive market for them. Which then means the number of clean energy superpowers drops significantly.

[Sam Grouet]

Sitting at the top of his list of true current energy superpowers. The US So I think the United.

[Benjamin Sovikul]

States is definitely there. And then the other three, you could probably name China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Saudi Arabia just because of their massive crude oil reserves. Russia because they're also were very big in LNG exports. And then lastly China, China, China, China, the world's second biggest economy, the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions. But they have had a transformation in their clean energy capabilities over the past 10 or 15 years. When I used to visit China 10 or 20 years ago, it was all gray skies and traffic jams. I was just there a few months ago. Blue skies, clean forms of energy. And China is set to become already the world's leading exporter of multiple green technologies.

[Sam Grouet]

Benjamin has spent the last 15 years closely watching the geopolitics of energy. He says Canada's current debate over its oil rich reserves and how much to rely on them is one he's seen other countries struggle with.

[Benjamin Sovikul]

It's the same struggle Norway has had because they have huge oil and gas reserves. They had Statoil, which is now called Equinor and basically they use their oil revenues to then invest in decarbonizing domestically. So it's exactly a sort of strategy that Canada could pursue.

[Sam Grouet]

But becoming an energy superpower, let alone a clean one, well isn't easy.

[Benjamin Sovikul]

I think that there are really big challenges to Canada even becoming just an energy superpower, and they do all revolve around oil and gas. And I think the first one is a very simple explanation of just the price volatility. If you go look at the price of crude oil or if you go look at the price of natural gas for the past 30 years, it's a roller coaster. It's up and down based on new discoveries, based on natural disasters, based on extreme storms like Hurricane Katrina, based on fires and accidents. And there are very few countries or companies that could manage that level of volatility.

[Sam Grouet]

For Canada energy reporter Amanda Stevenson, the challenges are more political.

[Amanda Stevenson]

What is clear is that Canada has abundant energy resources and the potential to tap those resources even further. Energy demand globally continues to rise, so it is certainly feasible that Canada could continue to grow its energy economy. However, I do think it remains to be seen whether that will happen. There are climate concerns, there are political concerns. The idea of growing Canadian LNG exports is not unanimously supported. All of those things are going to have to be balanced. So whether or not Canada can truly become an energy superpower, that remains to be seen.

[Sam Grouet]

Thanks to Amanda and to all of my guests, you've been listening to Business Daily on the BBC World Service. This episode was produced by Megan Lawton and presented by me, Sam Gruwet. You can find more episodes wherever you get your BBC Podcasts.

[Ray Winstone]

Hello, it's Ray Winstone. I'm here to tell you about my podcast on BBC Radio 4 histories Toughest Heroes. I've got stories about the pioneers, the rebels, the outcasts who define tough. And that was the first time that anybody ever ran a car up that fast with no tires on. It almost feels like your eyeballs are going to come out of your head. Tough enough for you? Subscribe to History's Toughest Heroes Wherever you get your podcast.