India wants to buy any energy product it can find in Canada and its officials are urging the federal government to ease the approval of various projects so that it can find new supplies to feed a fast-growing country with relatively few natural resources.
That’s the message the high commissioner of India in Canada, Dinesh Patnaik, conveyed in an interview with CBC News before Prime Minister Mark Carney left for a five-day visit to the country. The trip will focus on blocking new business deals and getting the free trade agreement negotiations underway as part of a campaign to break up the US market.
“With energy, there is an appetite that Canada can’t meet and we are willing to buy anything that Canada offers in green, LPG, LNG,” said Patnaik, talking about oil and gas products.
Patnaik said that boosting trade relations would help the two countries turn a page on years of bilateral bad blood.
Relations between the two countries have been strained since former prime minister Justin Trudeau accused unnamed Indian diplomats of involvement in the 2023 killing of a Canadian Sikh man. India denies any involvement.
But things have improved significantly since Carney invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the G7 in Alberta last year.
This is where the two leaders agreed to pursue a comprehensive economic agreement that is expected to be closer to reality in the coming days as the two leaders met again face to face in Delhi.
“Everything will come together so that power can redefine our relationship completely. Until now, all we have been doing is dropping in the bucket,” Patnaik said.
That message was echoed by Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, who has long been an advocate of closer trade relations with the Indo-Pacific economic powerhouse given his province’s potential and the agricultural products India wants to buy.
“Apart from politics, we have finally had some challenges in that relationship during the last ten years under the prime minister,” said Moe.
“We have a prime minister now who is focused on improving that trade relationship.”
To that end, Patnaik said India is interested in getting its hands on more Canadian uranium especially to power its growing nuclear sector.
India operates 25 reactors and eight more are under construction. The government there is looking at a tenfold increase in nuclear power from about 8.7 gigawatts now to 100 gigawatts by 2047 – and Canada, as the world’s second largest uranium producer with proven high deposits in Saskatchewan, can help achieve that ambition, Patnaik said.
“We are willing to take anything,” the high commissioner said, adding that Indian companies are open to owning Canadian uranium mines and buying more of the world’s leading nuclear technology.
“Nuclear is a big sector that we want to work on.”
Moe hopes Carney can strike a uranium supply deal with India — something a government official told CBC News could happen during the trip as Carney and Modi consider a series of cooperation deals.
A 10-year contract worth about $3 billion is what is being considered for uranium, according to a Forbes report. The deal would be a big boon for the prairie state and its largest uranium supplier, Cameco.
Patnaik said India does not want to be a captive customer, dependent on a few energy suppliers.
Until recently, India bought a lot of oil from Russia despite the ongoing war in Ukraine – something that has angered US President Donald Trump.
Trump imposed heavy tariffs on India – piling a 25 percent tariff on top of other “reciprocity” tariffs he already had on Indian products – and lifted them earlier this month after Modi agreed to stop relying on Russia’s oil sector.
In return for the tax relief, India agreed to buy US oil and US-controlled Venezuelan exports in return, Trump said.
But, with broader US trade talks on hold, Patnaik said India also wants Canadian oil to end its supply.
“Given what has happened around the world, we want to separate our base,” he said. “The amount that we need and the amount that the whole world needs, no one country will be able to provide all of that.”
The problem, says Patnaik, is that most of Canada’s oil is currently destined for one customer: the US.
According to data from the Canadian Energy Regulator, about 93 percent of Canada’s total crude oil exports were destined for the States by 2024. That puts Canadian oil companies — and governments that depend on taxes and profits from that sector — at a disadvantage because they sell their product at higher prices around the world.
Patnaik applauded Carney’s approval of a new oil pipeline to the Pacific, a project that, if built, would help break that dependency and provide more Canadian crude to other markets, particularly Asia.
BC’s export terminal would be closer to India than the US Gulf Coast, which is where India gets most of Canada’s crude now — a quirk of the North American market where most Canadian oil, even oil destined for offshore destinations, flows through the US given domestic pipeline barriers.
“He has a lot of power but he only serves one country,” Patnaik said.
“We can be your biggest client – I think that’s possible in the near future. The perception from India was that Canada was a tough country, a very organized, over-regulated country,” he said.
With Carey leading now, “I think people trust him that he can do more,” he said.
As part of its drive to establish a clean energy system and reduce its reliance on coal, India is also looking to increase the share of gas in its energy mix to 15 percent by 2030 from the current 6.2 percent.
India, already the world’s fourth-largest LNG consumer, is scrambling for more resources to meet those cheaper transition goals.
With seven LNG export projects in various stages of development — including two that Carney has already referred to the Office of Major Projects for immediate approval — Canada could be the supplier of choice for India and its more than 1.4 billion people.
Asked about India’s need to get more of Canada’s energy, Environment Minister Tim Hodgson said Canada and India, as middle powers, need to get closer in the face of “competitors” like the US who are pushing for economic integration – and part of that includes selling that country more than it needs.
“The prime minister said that he would like us to trade twice with India at the end of this decade. I think there is a willingness from India to do the same.
“I was pleased with the good reception we received in India when I was there a few weeks ago,” he said.
Sen. Peter Boehm, a former top strategist who is now chairman of the Senate foreign affairs and international trade committee, said Carney’s trip has the potential to bring great opportunities to the Canadian economy now that relations have moved from the “crisis management” phase.
“India needs more energy. There’s a lot — a lot — that can happen there,” Boehm said.
“98 percent of our energy goes to the United States and that’s uncertain right now in terms of continuity — exit is the way to go.”
