Atomic bonds: Uranium just one focus of Canada-India partnership
July 8, 2015 | By
Barbara Vergetis Lundin
Canada: Secure, reliable, responsible producer of energy to the world. India: Potentially the fastest growing economy in the world. The pairing may seem unlikely, but there are many things that bind them together for the foreseeable energy future -- the least of which is atomic energy.
At the recent India-Canada Ministerial Energy Dialogue, the second so far, Canada's Minister of Natural Resources Greg Rickford and Shri Dharmendra Pradhan, India's Minister of State (Independent Charge) Petroleum and Natural Gas, met to highlight Canada and India's growing energy partnership by strengthening government-to-government and business-to-business relationships. "Canada's growing energy relationship with India is helping create jobs and long-term prosperity for both of our countries," said Rickford. "We stand ready to expand our strategic partnership through greater cooperation based on our complementarity of energy interests." The relationship certainly seems complementary. Canada has the resources and expertise needed to support India's growing energy needs. In 2012, India was the fourth-largest energy consumer in the world. Recent International Monetary Fund studies showed that India is expected to be the fastest growing economy during from 2014 to 2025. In addition, India's oil demand growth between 2013 and 2040 is predicted by the International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook 2014 to be the highest in the world. The partnership between Canada and India has resulted in some substantive milestones conducive to building a bilateral energy relationship. On April 15, 2015, for example, Canada announced a contract with India's Department of Atomic Energy to supply more than seven million pounds of uranium to India over the next five years for the generation of electricity. Canada is the second-largest producer of uranium globally, with exports valued at more than $1 billion per year. India has one of the most aggressive growth plans for nuclear energy in the world and represents a large market opportunity for Canadian uranium fuel suppliers. India aims to supply 25 percent of its electricity from nuclear power by 2050. Canada is the fifth-largest producer of natural gas in the world and has up to 1,566 trillion cubic feet of marketable natural gas resources -- enough to meet our current production for over 300 years. Going forward, Canada could potentially supply a significant amount of the 44 billion cubic meters of natural gas that India is forecast to import annually by 2025. According to the International Energy Agency, in 2013, India was the world's fourth-largest LNG importer, with 5.2 percent of global imports. That same year, about a third of natural gas to meet India's demand came from imported LNG. Further, the ministers discussed opportunities to increase Indian participation in mining and oil sands activities (oil sands comprise approximately 97 percent of Canada's 172.5 billion barrels of proven reserves, the third-largest reserve in the world), to grow Canadian investments in India's energy infrastructure, and further technical collaboration in the areas of clean energy technologies, including solar, wind, power transmission, and carbon capture and storage. Canada and India will also work together to enhance skill development and share knowledge through university collaboration to accelerate the adoption of clean energy technologies. "India and Canada share common values and ideals and believe in long-term sustained partnerships. Our Energy Cooperation is steadily growing but the potential is much higher. Let's convert the potential into reality," said Pradhan. The next meeting of the Ministers will occur in 2016 in India for their third India-Canada Ministerial Energy Dialogue. For more: © 2015 FierceMarkets, a division of Questex, LLC. All rights reserved. |