Canada and the EU want an energy alliance. What would it look like?

Canada has the potential to bolster Europe’s energy security through a new alliance, but experts say it doesn’t necessarily mean tankers crossing the Atlantic Ocean laden with oil or liquefied natural gas.

Prime Minister Mark Carney was in Strasbourg, France, this week where he and European Union leadership discussed strengthening ties on several fronts amid strained relations with the United States.

Werner Antweiler, an economist at the University of British Columbia, says Europe is in a “precarious situation” as it aims to pivot away from Russian energy imports following that country’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

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Canada has pipelines and port infrastructure to export oil and gas from the West Coast to Asia, but no such option exists in the east, and any such project could take a decade or more to come to fruition.

In the meantime, Antweiler says European companies have the ability to secure a stable gas supply from Canada through what’s known as swap contracts, where a cargo headed for Asia, for instance, could be traded with another one bound for its shores.

Rachel Doran, executive director at Clean Energy Canada, sees a promising opportunity to supply critical minerals to Europe, helping it transition away from fossil fuels and grow its clean power supply.