It was maybe 10 years ago that my buddy and business partner Christian DeHaemer and I (along with a couple of other colleagues) were scheduled to speak at a Toronto investment conference.
Four or 5 of us had a couple of cocktails and shared a few laughs on the plane ride. And we might have gotten a bit loud and we are opinionated.
Going through customs at the Toronto airport, I said to Hammer something about the flight being pretty entertaining when a guy walking past said “I wanted to punch you in the nose.”
Well, I started laughing because I thought the guy was kidding — it never entered my mind that this was an actual threat. Hammer quickly shushed me, saying “Don’t, he’s serious, Canadians can be a little uptight.”
I bet Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis feels the same way after visiting Canada a week ago. Among other things, he was hoping to get a deal done for a supply of Canadian liquified natural gas (LNG) to help offset the lack of Russian natural gas for Greece and some of its neighbors.
But Mitsotakis got the same answer that Japanese Prime Minister Kishida and German Chancellor Sholz got before him: nope.
Canada is not interested in helping its allies with their energy needs. Prime Minister Trudeau said: there has “never been a strong business case” for LNG exports.
Ummm…the business case for LNG seems to be working out pretty well for the U.S. (the biggest LNG exporter), and Australia and Qatar and Malaysia and Nigeria…
I know Canada’s trying to be all eco-friendly. But turning down allies that have serious energy needs seems a little, well, uptight.
I’d think that the opportunity to potentially offset some coal plants with LNG – which produces around half the emissions that you get from coal when creating electricity – would be an obvious win-win for the world…
Plus, Canada can use hydroelectricity to liquefy and compress natural gas, meaning Canada’s LNG uses 25% less energy than U.S. LNG.
The case for restricting Canadian LNG exports seems pretty weak. That’s probably why the share price for Canada’s biggest natural gas company, Enbridge (NYSE: ENB) looks like this:
While the share price for one of the largest U.S. nat gas companies, Southwestern (NYSE: SWN) looks like this:
Once again, it pays to just buy U.S. stocks.
Briton Ryle
Chief Investment Strategist
Outsider Club
X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/BritonRyle
