India an ideal destination for increased Canadian energy exports: Analysts

Canada has pitched itself as a reliable partner for supplying energy to India. Canadian Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Tim Hodgson who was in India for the India Energy Week said Canada is committed to supplying energy to India, asserting that his country will never use energy for "coercion."

"We will never use our energy for coercion. We believe middle powers should work together to resist hegemony, and that's why I'm here," the Canadian minister said.

Canada is one of the world's largest energy producers.

Exporting 98 per cent of Canadian energy to one country is a "strategic blunder," Hodgson said yesterday. The fastest-growing demand for energy in the world will be in India, he added.

Susan Bell, senior vice-president of commodity markets at Rystad Energy, told The Globe and Mail that exporting Canadian fossil fuels to India is "definitely worth pursuing."

"The country already has a fairly large refining sector that processes roughly six million barrels a day of crude, and it has plans to grow its petrochemical sector," Bell said.

"So it's not just an opportunity for crude oil, it could also be an opportunity for naphtha and potentially even ethane," she aded.

Canada sells only a limited ammount of crude to India.

The bulk of India's heavy crude imports come from Iraq, and could reasonably be substituted with Canadian oil, Bell was quoted as saying. Bell said there is also opportunity for other products such as liquefied natural gas, for which India imports about 5 per cent of the world's supply.

With oil demand from China set to plateau over the next couple of decades, "India always comes up as the next big engine for global oil demand," Rory Johnston, an oil analyst with Commodity Context told The Globe and Mail.

As per the report, Johnston said oil demand in India is expected to accelerate in 2026. The country is "absolutely" a strategic market to target, he said, given its growing energy demands and massive population.

Daily oil demand in India grew at a much slower rate than expected in 2025, rising by roughly 100,000 barrels, rather than the 300,000 forecast by various agencies.

The Canadian Energy minister, speaking at the India Energy Week 2026, said, "It is a changing world we live in, and energy is at the centre of that. I'm here because, like you, the way to resist that change is to build multilateral relationships and to double down on diversification of supply."

Referring to the US, which has imposed tariffs on countries that import oil from Russia, the Canadian minister said his country is opposed to the view that "might makes right."

"We're not going to live in a world where might makes right. We're not going to live in a world where the strongest put tariffs on everyone else," he said during a discussion at IEW 2026.

Instead, he said Canada believes in free trade and trusted relationships. He said that diversifying energy needs was key.

"We relied on one supplier for natural gas, and that was a very strategic blunder. We can never let that happen again. We need to diversify our supply." Canada used to provide 98% of its energy to one customer. We are committed to diversifying our supply," he said.

India imports worth billions of energy annually. India depends on imports for about 80 per cent of its crude oil requirement. Various steps have been taken by the government to increase the production of domestic crude oil and bring down imports, including domestic avenues. (ANI)