Alberta backs non-US oil and gas exports

Asia-Pacific offers long-term markets; Kitimat LNG, Northern Gateway under study

THE ALBERTA government has given priority to energy exports to Asia to lessen its dependence on a “fragile” US economy and an uncertain southern outlet for its oil-sands crude. It says an Asia Advisory Council will soon be appointed and given four years to recommend ways of enhancing those trade ties, with special emphasis on India, China, Japan and South Korea. Asia is the province’s second-largest export market, valued at C$7bn ($7.2bn), mostly for agricultural and forest products, while the US accounts for C$69bn, heavily weighted to oil and natural gas. But Premier Ed Stelmach says Alberta “cannot sustain superior economic prosperity” by relying on the US. The government says it is in Ca