{"id":390399,"date":"2026-01-05T22:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T22:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/390399\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T22:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T22:02:12","slug":"will-the-u-s-operation-in-venezuela-hit-canadas-oil-industry-what-we-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/390399\/","title":{"rendered":"Will the U.S. operation in Venezuela hit Canada\u2019s oil industry? What we know"},"content":{"rendered":"

While concerns are being raised about how the U.S. ouster of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro<\/a> could impact Canada\u2019s oil markets, industry experts say the effect won\u2019t be immediate.<\/p>\n

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U.S. President Donald Trump has signalled interest in transforming Venezuela\u2019s oil sector, but on Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. won\u2019t govern the South American country<\/a> and will continue its \u201coil quarantine,\u201d bringing questions about what\u2019s next for the sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of coming back permanently, I see that will be extremely difficult,\u201d said Luis Virla, who used to work for Venezuela\u2019s petrochemical industry. \u201cIt will take many years and a lot of money to bring back the energy infrastructure and energy sector to the way it was, even in the \u201990s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the work needed to bring Venezuela\u2019s sector up to speed, news of the U.S. operation in Venezuela weighed on Canadian energy stocks Monday.<\/p>\n

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Cenovus Energy Inc. and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. were each down about five per cent and Suncor Energy Inc. dropped 1.4 per cent. Enbridge Inc., which operates a vast cross-border oil pipeline network that it plans to expand, and South Bow Corp., whose Keystone system ships crude to the U.S., each fell around three per cent.<\/p>\n

Venezuela produced about 1.1 million barrels of oil per day in November 2025 and exported 950,000 barrels, but U.S. measures, including its blockade, knocked shipments down to approximately 500,000 barrels daily in December, according to preliminary figures based on ship movements.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tPhysical exports to the U.S. not as big an impact as price hit: RBC\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Shaz Merwat, energy policy lead at RBC Thought Leadership, said in an interview Monday that Canadian oil should not have difficulty \u201cfinding a home\u201d in the U.S., noting that about four million to 4.2 million barrels a day are exported to the U.S. by pipelines.<\/p>\n

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The majority of that is sent to the U.S. Midwest \u2014 approximately 2.8 million to 2.9 million barrels per day.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat\u2019s not a refining region where Venezuelan crude ends up,\u201d Merwat said. \u201cVenezuela\u2019s crude, essentially, all of it goes to the U.S. Gulf Coast.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. Gulf Coast and West Coast each receive about 400,000 to 500,000 per day from Canada.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of attention around the refiners in the Gulf that were designed for Venezuelan oil and had significantly switched to Canadian oil for refinement, would they be looking at or prioritizing having back Venezuelan oil,\u201d said Virla, who now works as a professor at the University of Calgary.<\/p>\n

Merwat added that price could be a factor more than where in the U.S. oil could be sent.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhere there is concern obviously is a function of price because now U.S. refineries have more availability, more options as to where they source their crude and it gives them increasing bargaining power and then that can widen the differential in Canada on our heavy oil,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\tCanada must continue diversification\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Heather Exner-Pirot, director of energy and natural resources and environment at the MacDonald-Laurier Institute, said she\u2019s not heavily concerned about competition for Canadian oil from Venezuela at this time, because competition already exists from the U.S., Brazil, Mexico and OPEC, among others.<\/p>\n

The best thing Canada can do is continue what it\u2019s doing, according to Exner-Pirot.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, the only people that buy heavy oil is refineries that accept heavy oil and most of those are in the United States and in Asia,\u201d she said. \u201cIf we\u2019re going to diversify our exports, it\u2019s going to be to Asian refineries that do want our heavy oil.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s likely to take years for Venezuela to return to past production levels, Virla said, while Canada has an opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s very little power that Canada as a supply economy or Alberta\u2019s supply economy can have, depending on one market, basically,\u201d he said. \u201cI would encourage the Canadian industry to actually be bold and say, \u2018OK, how do we also focus on diversifying our client inventory, how do we include other types of energy products to make ourselves less exposed to these drastic changes in the market?’\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement to Global News, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said the events in Venezuela \u201cemphasize\u201d the need to speed up pipeline production to diversify oil export markets.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMore on Canada
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\u201cAlberta supports building pipelines in all directions to get our product to market and we look forward to continuing to work with provincial and federal partners to advance these projects,\u201d Smith wrote.<\/p>\n

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) said in a statement the situation in Venezuela reinforces the need for diversification.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat these events underscore is that in an increasingly unpredictable world, Canada must continue its drive to be a more competitive place for energy investment to strengthen our economic foundation and position ourselves to thrive through market cycles and global volatility,\u201d said Lisa Baiton, president and CEO of CAPP.<\/p>\n

\u2014 with files from Reuters, The Canadian Press and The Associated Press<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While concerns are being raised about how the U.S. ouster of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro could impact Canada\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[137083,49,48,44,64152,2845,20147,3275],"class_list":{"0":"post-390399","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-alberta-oil","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-oil-industry","13":"tag-u-s-news","14":"tag-venezuela","15":"tag-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}