OTTAWA — Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson says Canada can produce and export another 300,000 barrels of oil and natural gas per day as part of a global effort to displace Russian fossil fuels.
Wilkinson is in Paris for an International Energy Agency meeting, which was focused heavily on helping Europe reduce its strong dependence on Russia for oil and gas.
He says consultations with industry have identified that Canada can speed up production and also has the pipeline capacity to make small increases to its oil and gas exports by the end of this year.
That includes 200,000 barrels per day of oil and 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day of natural gas.
Wilkinson says Canada is "very open to the discussion" about what else it can do to help, including new natural gas terminals on the East Coast to export Canadian LNG to Europe.
But he says those investments are heavily dependent on understanding the amount of time it would take to get them running, and being able to ensure any new gas infrastructure is "ultralow emission" so it doesn't increase Canada's carbon foot print along the way.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 24, 2022.
The Canadian Press
