Canada could supply the U.S. with a third of the oil that the country usually imports from Russia in the wake of the Biden administration’s ban, Suncor Energy Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Little said.
Canadian oil executives speaking at CERAWeek by S&P Global on Tuesday excoriated the Biden administration for blocking construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which they said could have helped ease prices at the pump in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. They also questioned why the U.S. was asking OPEC countries such as Venezuela to boost crude production instead of importing more oil from Canada.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday banned Russian oil imports. The U.S. typically imports about 700,000 barrels a day of Russian oil.
“Connecting the third-largest reserves of oil with your greatest ally and trade partner, to me, was just such an obvious thing,” Cenovus Energy CEO Alex Pourbaix said.
“It was just such a tragedy on so many levels that it became just such a whipping boy for this entire debate about climate change,” he said of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have connected Alberta’s oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries.
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