What resource is Canada's largest export by value?

Crude oil and petroleum products are Canada's largest export by value, generating about $130 billion in revenue in 2023, primarily from Alberta's oil sands. Canada produces about five million barrels of oil per day, making it the fourth-largest oil producer in the world after the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Russia, and the world's largest exporter of crude oil to the United States.

The oil sands of northern Alberta hold proven reserves of about 165 billion barrels, the third-largest oil reserves in the world after Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. Production is dominated by integrated companies including Suncor Energy, Canadian Natural Resources Limited, Cenovus Energy, and Imperial Oil, with operations centred on Fort McMurray. Oil is extracted by surface mining for shallow deposits and by steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) for deeper deposits. Diluted bitumen flows south by pipeline to United States Gulf Coast refineries.

Canadian oil reaches market through several pipeline systems. The Trans Mountain Expansion, completed in May 2024, runs from Edmonton to Burnaby, British Columbia, tripling capacity to 890,000 barrels per day and giving Alberta producers tidewater access to Asian markets for the first time. Enbridge's Line 3 replacement (completed 2021), the Keystone system, and the cross-border Express Pipeline carry most of the rest. The cancellation of TC Energy's Keystone XL by United States President Joe Biden in January 2021 cost the industry an estimated $8 billion in stranded investment.

Federal climate policy is reshaping the sector. The federal Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act introduced a national carbon price beginning April 1, 2019. The Pathways Alliance of major oil-sands producers has committed to net-zero operational emissions by 2050. Carbon capture, utilization, and storage projects such as the Quest CCS facility near Edmonton have removed more than nine million tonnes of CO2 since opening in 2015.