It was the 4.3 million barrel per day (bpd) gorilla in the room.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was immediately thrust into the Canada/US tariff trade war debate on the world stage at the CERAWeek by S&P Global energy conference in Houston on Wednesday. And 4.3 million bpd is how much oil Alberta ships to the US, or nearly two-thirds of its foreign imports.
Smith had barely taken her seat when conference chairman Daniel Yergin asked the question. “I can’t resist and am in fact required to start by asking Danielle (Smith): What do you think of the tariffs?”
“I don’t like ‘em,” she replied, to nervous laughter from the near-packed room. At one point she asked how many Americans were in attendance so she could properly frame her remarks.
The first five minutes of the 40-minute session were taken up with a passionate defence of continental energy cooperation and her attempts to find a ‘diplomatic’ solution to what she framed as an impasse between Washington and Ottawa.
"I would like to go back to the tariff-free relationship we've enjoyed on most markets since the NAFTA agreement," she said, noting USpresident Donald Trump himself had called it the "greatest trade deal of all time."
And she joked that she couldn't keep track of the latest tariffs without pausing to check Trump's Truth Social account.
"Even with the latest escalation and de-escalation we've had since yesterday, the one thing we can take to heart is the few things not on the list of irritants and one of those is energy."
Smith also said she remained hopeful the two countries could set aside differences and get back to work before the present exemptions expire on April 2.
"Once we get through this rough patch we can talk about how Alberta can contribute to US energy dominance," she said.
Also on Wednesday, Smith announced the preliminary results of a reserves report that quantifies the quantifies the amount of oil and gas Alberta has in the ground.
In that regard the official figure sit at 1.8 trillion barrels of oil and 130 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas — that's just what's considered 'recoverable' — the actual figures are orders of magnitude higher depending on the technology of the day.
The audits are regularly performed by conventional oil and gas companies to take inventory of their main assets, which is oil and gas.
Smith said those numbers compliment the US' own figures, which are comparable on the gas side at least.
What it means from a Canadian perspective is that Smith's goal of doubling oil production is attainable if only it can get out of the ground.
"We've got a good oil story, but we've got an even better gas story," she said. "We believe that our approach is complementary to the American approach... and if we can crowd out some of the less reliable partners, like Iran and Venezuela I think that that helps American energy security interests."
