“We’re emerging from COVID with a likely pent-up demand that is going to aggravate that situation," Canadians for Affordable Energy president Dan McTeague told CTV News Wednesday. With Moscow's product not moving on the international market, the already small global supply of oil is even smaller, meaning Canada is now competing for oil in an ever-more competitive market. “Cargoes have already been rejected by European refiners in the market, because people are afraid sanctions might be coming, and so they don’t want to be caught with some cargo they can’t resell,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, a research professor and managing director of the Climate Policy Lab at Tufts University, told the Associated Press. Russia has a vast tap of natural resources including oil and gas, but some foreign buyers are afraid of purchasing any for fear of getting caught up in financial sanctions. The Russian oil ban applies only to crude oil for now, but the government is looking at oil derivative products next, a government source told The Canadian Press. CTV News app sign-up: Breaking news alerts and top stories delivered right to youĭespite this, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Monday a ban on Russian crude oil imports in a mostly symbolic gesture.In 2020, Canada didn't import any crude oil from the Russian Federation, and imported three per cent of its total crude oil from Russia in 2019.
More than 77 per cent of Canada's total crude oil imports in 2020 came from the United States. But with Canadians consuming tens of billions of litres of oil each year, Canada also imports crude oil from other countries to meet demand. Canada is experiencing a major spike in gas prices related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, despite the fact that Canada imports little oil from Moscow.Ĭanada has the third-largest oil reserves in the world and relies on Canadian companies to refine most of its own crude oil.