Canadian Competitiveness

Ethical Energy New Governor 20 Comments

As I was sifting through the influencer pulp this morning on the UAE decision to leave OPEC (and decided to sit it out), I stumbled upon this chart from the just released OPEC Annual Statistical Bulletin.

Let’s zoom in.

Blue is crude price, red is tax, coral is industry profit margin.

Related.

20 Replies to “Canadian Competitiveness”

  2. I do not believe that graph and it goes back to the silly stickers they used to put on pumps at gas stations (where refineries earned less than 4% on the price of gasoline). My issue is … how can you separate crude prices from industry profits? In some cases, aren’t they selling the crude they produce to their own refineries? And if the industry profits are so low, why are oil & gas companies so profitable? Yes we are heavily taxed but don’t let the oil industry tell you how pious it is.

    1. I think oil and gas companies are so profitable because of the sheer volume of product sold, much like supermarket chains.

      Everybody uses energy and everybody eats.

      1. And don’t get me started on supermarket chains. It is possible to organize a company to make it appear as though it makes no money.

    2. The graph is accurate. The US and Canada have low fuel taxes – Europes are high.
      Think of it this way:
      1) The landed price of a barrel of oil is the same all over the world with maybe a $2.00 a barrel for shipping and that is from the Middle East to the Far East w/o a war going on. In the US and Canada $2.00 per barrel for 500 miles by pipeline.
      2) Refineries are all the same. They are built the same and operated the same – ZERO difference.
      3) So the only difference is taxation be default.

      As far as Oil and gas company profits? The lifting cost in Ghawar in Saudi Arabia is very low – in The Patch in Texas it is high because the wells are much smaller and require more hydraulic fracking and drilling, so Saudi Aramco the world’s largest oil company is very profitable per barrel while Texas producers need prices closer to $70 to remain profitable so as to keep drilling.

      You don’t have to believe all this, but it happens to be true and it’s just simple math. On the other hand if you are a Marxist like Bernie Sanders, Mamdani, Trudeau or Obama you’ll never understand it. You aren’t smart or open minded enough

      1. Getting back to the graph (and my point), you can’t separate industry profits and crude oil price because the latter has industry profits built into it. Or are you telling me the industry sells it crude at cost (smart, open-minded one).

  5. We have experts here, so somebody out there, why is the crude price so high?

    I’m going to guess 1) taxes (aka “royalites etc.) 2) regulations and 3) transport cost. No pipelines.

    But this is a guess. It would be nice to know.

    1. It is a difficult thing to understand. For example, ExxonMobil earnings are mostly from off-shore operations but the revenue and profits are declared in the US. If a Canadian company has Canadian-only operations they may have similar costs to US operations but no bump-up from cheaper off-shore operations.

      Suncor (Canada) net earnings in 2025 were 11.3% of gross revenue.

      Exxonmobil (USA) net earnings in 2025 were 8.9% of gross revenue.

      1. Crude price, Steve. Canada gets crude from the Middle East and from Alberta/Saskatchewan.

        Why is our crude price DOUBLE the OECD average?

  6. That graph is a stark visual of the Canadian Government business model (an oxymoron) since 2015;
    they shouldn’t make a profit, but they do by stealing private sector profits (carbon tax)
    then giving it away to their “invested” supporters and starving out all else.

    Food stores, the big bad oil companies, and many Canadian companies have been forced into a business model
    which screws over their own customers because so-called government steals their realized profit even on enormous volume;
    the corruption all flows downstream from the Liberal Party of Canada.

    Supermarkets will soon be hearing more misplaced wrath of Canucks;
    no longer able to turn a profit they’ll just leave Canada, as many oil companies have.

      1. And what really pisses me off is you see comments from the leftist lunatics always howling about the “subsidies” given to oil and gas companies, but they never seem to be able to explain what those “subsidies” are…..some point to the fact that the feds finally got TMX built without realizing that Kinder would have built it without one cent of taxpayer money and had it operating years earlier. I point out to those morons that what Canadians REALLY paid for was $10 Billion in taxpayer money for each Liberal seat in the Vancouver area that they wanted to hold on to.

        1. And what really pisses me off is you see comments from the leftist lunatics always howling about the “subsidies” given to oil and gas companies, but they never seem to be able to explain what those “subsidies” are…

          I believe (and I stand to be corrected) that the “subsidies” the [spit] Progs piss & moan about is known as expenses taken as deductions on their tax bill. It’s that simple & that complicated.

          It’s also bloody stupid, because all businesses can write off expenses.

  8. Ask Grok: Where does the Carney Liberal budget deficit rank in size?

    HINT: Second largest after the covid budget in real dollars, unadjusted.

  9. C’mon now.
    Didn’t some media hosebag recently tell Pierre P. that lowering taxes would be inflationary.
    Therefore, mofos, we need to Raise the taxes on petrol to keep prices down.

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