Canada’s Underutilized Wealth of Natural Resources

Despite sparse populations and a wealth of oil, gas, and minerals, Canada's political economy does not favor resource extraction beyond the immediate needs of provincial budgets and commodity markets.

ConocoPhillips facilities in Alberta, Canada in 2016. Photo by Jason Woodhead. Source.

Canada is one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of both oil and natural gas. In 2023, Canada was the fourth-largest oil producer behind the U.S., Russia, and Saudi Arabia, producing an average of 4.6 million barrels per day—roughly half the rate of Saudi Arabia.¹ It was also the fifth-largest producer of natural gas after the U.S., Russia, Iran, and China, producing 190 billion cubic meters (bcm)—about a third of Russia’s production and more than major liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporters like Australia and Qatar.² Canada is also a major exporter of minerals like potash, iron ore, and uranium. Deposits of valuable natural resources are unevenly distributed around the world and incompletely explored and identified, but are more likely to be discovered the more geographical area a country has on both land and sea. By area, Canada is the second-largest country in the world, with its roughly 10 million square kilometers making it modestly larger than the United States or China and more than half the size of Russia, the largest country in the world.³