In 1981, when the United States was building out its Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the Canadian government was considering creating joint oil storage space with the Americans on Bell Island, in Newfoundland and Labrador, and along the Canso Strait in Nova Scotia. But the plan was abandoned after the U.S. energy secretary at the time decided there was no way they were going to build part of the vital reserve in another country.
“Not even Canada,” the American official concluded, according to Robert Skinner, who served as an assistant deputy minister in the federal energy department in the early 1980s when the plan was first proposed, and is now an executive fellow at the University of Calgary School of Public Policy.
In the years since, the U.S. reserve has expanded and now has the capacity to hold 800 million barrels of oil, but Canada has never followed suit. Canada’s energy supply and storage systems have been tested by various unexpected events and disasters and — in many cases — narrowly avoided catastrophic outcomes.
That has led some to suggest Canada to develop its own Strategic Petroleum Reserve, something that could both help address the country’s inefficient energy supply chain while offering Ottawa a lever to support the energy industry by filling the reserve when times are tough.
[Interesting Read]
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