Stay notified with complimentary updates
Merely register to the Oil & & Gas market myFT Digest– provided straight to your inbox.
Canadian oil and gas business have actually preserved some durability even in the middle of current worldwide chaos as their southern neighbour starts a trade war and stock exchange and unrefined rates slide.
Saturn Oil and Gas, Stampede Drilling and Arrow Expedition are amongst the 100 most quickly growing business in the Americas, according to a 2025 Financial Times ranking. Saturn was the market’s fastest growing business in the area, putting 5th general, after it published a compound yearly development rate of 353 percent in between 2020 and 2023.
The robust development comes at a time when Canada is disputing how to produce more energy for the United States and beyond. “The basics are strong; business case exists,” Lisa Baiton, the president of Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, stated at a financier conference in Toronto in April.
Stampede and Arrow are counting on Canada’s restored interest in oil and gas together with a push to diversify markets in reaction to the Trump administration’s threatened tariffs and the nation’s over-reliance on the United States. Stampede had 14 out of its 19 rigs functional in the very first quarter while Arrow has actually increased from 13 tasks in 2024 to strategies to drill 23 wells this year.
Oil rates nevertheless have actually fallen in current months, with a more than 10 percent drop given that the start of April, as President Donald Trump has actually provided a variety of tariff hazards.
Calgary-based John Jeffrey, Saturn’s president, indicate a disciplined business hedging method that has actually reduced threats versus oil cost volatility and supplied the business with some monetary stability regardless of the marketplace turbulence.
” In 2022, when oil was $120 a barrel, we hedged out 3 years of production since we truly liked that cost,” Jeffrey states. “Certainly, oil boiled down, which hedge began paying a big quantity of cash.”
Saturn locks in oil and gas rates on a part of production, utilizing monetary acquired product agreements, normally futures, choices, or swaps, Jeffrey states.
This “sensible threat technique” together with considerable development in properties, production and capital given that 2020 has actually assisted insulate the business from Trump’s trade policies or the effect of sanctions on Russian unrefined exports, he states. Saturn in 2015 got more properties in Saskatchewan at a rate of $525mn.
In March, Trump enforced a variety of tariffs on Canadian products, consisting of a 10 percent levy on energy and potash exports. He backtracked right after with an exemption by means of the United States, Canada and Mexico trade arrangement. Weeks later on his prepare for extensive tariffs triggered a two-day $5.4 tn worldwide market thrashing that depressed Saturn’s share cost by 12 percent.
” I dislike tariffs; [they’re] going to injure a great deal of Canadian households,” Jeffrey states. However, “these tariffs have actually done something which’s driven down the Canadian dollar. I make money in United States [currency].”
A weak Canadian dollar, which has actually dropped due to United States tariffs, is benefiting those in the market who have more scope to pay for financial obligation and cover running expenses and incomes from profits made in United States currency.
Canada, which has the world’s third-largest oil reserves, is the most significant foreign provider to the United States, accounting for about 60 percent of its oil imports. These have actually ended up being progressively essential to aging United States oil refineries, which were developed to manage much heavier grades of crude.
About 80 percent of Saturn’s oil reserves are lighter crude from Saskatchewan province while the rest is from neighbouring Alberta, which is thought about home to Canada’s petroleum market.
” Saskatchewan is a significant oil manufacturer,” states Heather Exner-Pirot, the director of energy, natural deposits and environment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa. If the province “were an Opec country it would rank 11th in production”.
Saturn’s production has actually skyrocketed from 7,500 barrels a day in 2022 to 41,900 bpd at the end of 2024. Jeffery states the benefit of light petroleum is lower capital investment and running expenses.
” If we awaken and it’s $50 oil tomorrow, we’ll simply stop drilling,” he states. “Saturn has no drilling dedications or responsibilities, and the oil, it’s not going anywhere.”
Belt-tightening has actually “minimized their transport expenses by 36 percent over the last 4 years”, Jeffery includes.
Saturn has actually had luck too. In February 2022, it purchased the Ridgeback Resources for $525mn when the asking cost was $1bn. “We have actually been fortunate in the sense that we have actually had the capability to get these properties at extremely low rates.”