Diane Francis: The world needs more Canadian resources & More News Here – Upjobsnews

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The great resource reset is underway, as punitive sanctions against Russia strand its natural resource and agricultural production and offer opportunities to resource-rich countries such as Canada, Australia and the United States.

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Russia is being isolated by financial restrictions and the noose looks to be tightening as the European Union mulls even tougher restrictions on imports of Russian coal, oil and natural gas. Just as significant are the sanctions that prohibit Russia’s access to U.S. dollar transactions, as well as to the companies, capital, technology and expertise that have built its resource industries.

Almost immediately after the invasion, the world’s major oil and mining giants pulled out of Russia voluntarily. Their departure saw the withdrawal of the money, engineers, geologists and technologists that Russia relies on to drill, develop and produce energy, potash, nickel and other metals and minerals.

This means that Russia won’t have the ability to repair and upgrade its existing operations, much less build the pipelines and other infrastructure needed to provide the enormous oil and gas quantities that it has committed to China.

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Geologically, Canada is a mirror image of Russia and the two are among the world’s biggest producers of oil and gas, uranium, nickel, potash and wheat. Countries are now competing to secure Canadian supplies of these and other commodities. Two weeks after the February invasion of Ukraine, Brazil’s agricultural minister flew up to Canada to secure supplies of potash for its gigantic agricultural sector.

The whole world is coming to Canada

Murad Al-Katib

“Tereza Cristina, Brazil’s minister of agriculture, said in a public statement she had secured an undisclosed increase in exports of potash from Canadian producers after meetings with government officials and industry executives. Before the Ukraine conflict, Brazil imported about 36 per cent of its potash from Canada, compared with close to half imported from Russia and Belarus,” read a report in the Wall Street Journal.

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“The whole world is coming to Canada,” Murad Al-Katib, chief executive of AGT Food and Ingredients, told the Journal. His Saskatchewan company buys grains and pulse crops from Canadian farmers and ships them around the globe. He said demand for Canadian crops is surging in countries such as Turkey, Algeria and Tunisia.

The scramble for supplies has resulted in soaring prices that may lead to food shortages and inflation, so the rapid increase in the production of food and other necessities will be a major topic at this week’s meetings of the G7, World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Both the U.S. and Canada have already pledged to increase food exports.

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Natural resources are the backbone of the world’s economy and Canada is third among the top 10 countries in terms of resource wealth, according to Investopedia. Canada’s economy in general, and its stock market, will be big beneficiaries of global efforts to isolate Russia.

The resource reset will also benefit the federal and provincial governments, which is why they must step aside and facilitate, not sabotage, the mobilization of the country’s natural endowments to fight inflation and to play a prominent role in a righteous cause.

Some Canadian uranium and potash producers have increased their output in response to market needs. Ottawa has also said that Canada has the ability to boost oil production by around 300,000 barrels per day by the end of the year. But more is needed.

“We need to be doing more than 300K/day and faster,” tweeted Sonya Savage, Alberta’s energy minister. “And we can, if the federal government will get out of the way. It’s time to start treating our oil and gas reserves as a strategic asset to be proud of, rather than a liability to be phased out.”

The world needs more Canada … and that means resources.

Financial Post

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