Showing posts sorted by date for query ALBERTA. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Thursday, June 11, 2026

Column: Nickel’s recovery hopes tempered by growing stock overhang

Reuters | June 10, 2026 |

A haul dump trucks used to transport mining material in the nickel mining of PT Vale Indonesia in Sorowako. Stock image.

(The opinions expressed here are those of Andy Home, a columnist for Reuters.)

Nickel’s early-year rally is a collective bet that Indonesia’s multi-year production surge is finally abating, allowing the market to rebalance after four consecutive years of oversupply.

But a growing mountain of surplus metal accumulating in London Metal Exchange (LME) and Shanghai Futures Exchange (ShFE) warehouses is a reminder that this could be a slow-fuse process.

Combined exchange inventory stands at 468,600 metric tons, the largest stock overhang since 2015 and equivalent to around six weeks of global ‌usage.

The rate of growth has slowed as LME-registered stocks plateau out. But the rise in Shanghai inventory has been simultaneously accelerating, suggesting the refined nickel surplus is now migrating eastwards.

Production hits in the West

LME nickel stocks, including off-warrant inventory, rose for nine straight months between June last year and March, when they topped out just below the 400,000-metric-ton level.

They have since edged 20,000 tons lower. Although metal is still arriving at LME warehouses in sizeable clips, warrant cancellations and load-out rates have also picked up in recent weeks, signalling a stronger draw on metal from the physical market.

The Western supply chain, or what’s left of it after Indonesia’s Chinese-backed supply tsunami, is absorbing two unexpected hits to production.

The Ambatovy mine in Madagascar has been suspended since February due to ⁠damage from a cyclone.

The mine, which is being taken over by a consortium led by Jason Kluk, former head of nickel trading at Glencore, produced 28,000 tons of finished nickel products in 2024.

Just as Ambatovy is due to return at the end of this month, Sherritt International’s Fort Saskatchewan refinery may run out of feed.

The Canadian producer has suspended direct participation in its Cuban mining joint venture after the latest salvo of US sanctions on the country.

The mines are integrated with Sherritt’s nickel plant in Alberta and the company warned last month it expected its raw materials inventory to last only to the middle of June.

Sherritt expected to produce 26,000-28,000 tons of finished nickel this year but the outlook is now highly uncertain. The sanctions have upended Sherritt’s nickel business and the company has just signed a term sheet to sell a majority stake to Gillon Capital.

China's trade in refined nickel — China’s trade in refined nickel

Surplus moves to China

While the nickel stocks build in the West shows signs of exhaustion, Chinese inventory is rapidly climbing.

Shanghai exchange stocks have almost doubled since the start of the year and now total 87,671 tons, which is the highest level since 2017. The rise has been relentless with no discernible seasonal impact from the new year holiday period.

There may be a lot more sitting ‌in government ⁠warehouses.

China’s imports of refined metal surprised to the upside last year and they have remained robust so far this year.

The country imported 231,000 tons of nickel in 2025, the highest tally in four years, according to the World Bureau of Metal Statistics, which collates official customs data.

Yet Chinese nickel producers also exported a record 171,000 tons of metal, mainly to LME warehouses in Asia.

The two-way flow makes little market sense unless imports included purchases by government stockpile managers.

Macquarie analysts think governments absorbed around 150,000 tons of nickel last year as they look to build reserves of what most deem to be a critical mineral. The bank expects more strategic buying this year.

China isn’t explicitly ⁠referenced but the country has long been a strategic stockpiler of nickel and soaking up more metal at a time of low prices is a tried-and-tested policy.

LME and ShFE nickel relative year-to-date performance

Slow rebalancing

China’s import surge has rolled into this year. Inbound volumes of refined nickel jumped by 56% year-on-year to 94,000 tons in the January to April period, while exports fell to just 9,400 tons.

Combined with China’s own expanded smelter capacity, running off Indonesian raw materials, it’s little surprise that domestic inventory ⁠is rising and Shanghai prices are underperforming those in London.

The price gap should create a renewed incentive for exports but so far that’s not happening.

It’s not as if the West needs more metal anyway despite the disruption in Madagascar and Canada.

While Indonesian production may well fall this year due to a combination of government mining restrictions and lack of sulfur for processing, it’s clearly going to take time before that ⁠becomes manifest in the refined metal segment of the market.

Carney chairs virtual meeting with the premiers as CUSMA talks loom on horizon

The Canadian Press

Updated: June 10, 2026

Alberta pitches cheap natural gas for data centre boom, at odds with Canada’s clean power aims

Reuters

Published: June 09, 2026

CALGARY -- Alberta is touting its abundant supply of cheap fossil fuels to entice tech companies to build data centres for the AI boom, a move that would undermine Canada’s plan to link new data centre development with clean energy expansion.

Canada is the world’s fifth-largest producer of natural gas, around 60 per cent of which comes from Alberta. As well as huge fossil fuel reserves, the province boasts a cooler climate that can offset the cooling costs of data centre infrastructure and plenty of available land. All that can make operating data centres more cost-efficient than in the United States, where they are facing pushback from communities and lawmakers.

Tech companies could also create a new market for long-suffering natural gas producers in Western Canada, where drillers face a multi-year supply glut and at times have had to pay customers to take their gas when prices have turned negative.

But a rapid expansion of data centres in Alberta would disrupt Canada’s plans to power the AI boom using clean hydro, renewables and nuclear. While natural gas is a cleaner power source than coal or oil, as a fossil fuel it still contributes to emissions.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has said Canadian data centres will run on “some of the cleanest power in the world.” His government’s June 4 AI strategy — which aims to speed up Canada’s adoption of artificial intelligence — highlighted how more than 83 per cent of the country’s electricity grid comes from renewables and low-emission power sources.

Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks alongside Alberta Premier Danielle Smith in Calgary, Friday, May 15, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

Canada currently has only five functioning data centres at the so-called hyperscale level, demanding at least 50 megawatts of electricity capacity, equivalent to the power needs of a small city.

But nearly 100 more are in the works and 90 per cent of those are planned for Alberta, where the emissions intensity of the province’s electricity grid is almost five times the national average, research from York University shows.

“We’re essentially looking at these data centres as digital pipelines and digital refineries for us to help get the value from our natural gas to global markets, but in a creative modern way,” Alberta’s Technology Minister Nate Glubish said in an interview.

The province aims to attract $100 billion in data centre investment. Glubish said he has made multiple trips to Silicon Valley since 2024 to court energy-hungry tech giants with Alberta’s natural gas pitch.

The 20 existing small- to mid-scale data centres in Alberta already pull from the province’s energy grid, which is 60 per cent powered by natural gas. The provincial government is giving new proponents the option to build their own power sources to avoid limits on power capacity.

Julia Sawatzky, a doctor and member of the advocacy group Canadian Physicians for the Environment, said there was a growing discrepancy between Canada’s stated environmental goals and the reality on the ground.

“There seems to be an idea or a vision that Canada could be a green economy or a place that’s meeting its climate goals,” Sawatzky said. “But the way this AI data strategy might actually roll out, I think, is cause for all of us to really pay attention.”

A spokeswoman for Canada’s federal department of innovation did not comment on how Alberta’s proposed buildout of natural gas-fired data centres fitted with the country’s clean-power AI strategy. She said Canada will align new data centre development with clean energy expansion, strong environmental standards, and benefits for local communities.

An Alberta government spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.

Connect quickly

Many tech giants have climate and emissions targets, which in theory would put Alberta’s natural gas-based electricity grid at a disadvantage to other Canadian jurisdictions such as Quebec, with its low-carbon hydroelectric grid.

But Glubish said the companies he is in talks with are more concerned with power availability, and the ability to connect to the grid quickly. He declined to name the companies.

Latest technology news on BNNBloomberg.ca

Combining natural gas with carbon capture and storage — a technology which aims to trap emissions from industrial processes and store them underground — could in future help tech companies maintain their climate goals, Glubish said.

Tech companies Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft already operate data centres in central Canada, but on a smaller scale than in the U.S., which offers hyperscalers better tax incentives and proximity to customers.

Major hyperscalers Meta and Microsoft declined to comment on whether they plan to expand in Alberta, while Alphabet did not respond to a request for comment. An Amazon spokesperson said the company has invested in two solar projects and one wind project in Alberta, which help power its existing data centres.

Alberta-based Pembina Pipeline and partner Kineticor are expected to make a final investment decision by the end of June on a proposed 900 MW natural gas-fired generating facility they are developing for a customer with plans to build a large-scale data centre in the province.

Pembina declined to name the customer, but on a recent conference call, CEO Scott Burrows said the data centre project will create incremental demand for natural gas.

“The whole industry is falling all over ourselves to find a way to draw investment here to increase demand for our energy and to avoid the commodity otherwise being wasted at rock-bottom prices,” said Mike Belenkie, CEO of natural gas producer Advantage Energy.

(Reporting by Amanda Stephenson in Calgary; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Nia Williams)

Why Canada should think bigger on solar

Dr. Tim Sandle

DIGITAL JOURNAL
June 8, 2026

Bank of solar power panels. Image © Tim Sandle

On a windswept plain in southern Alberta, a field of mirrors now tracks the sun with quiet precision. Each panel tilts in unison, converting photons into electrons, sunlight into electricity. It is a scene more commonly associated with California or Spain than Canada—and yet it may offer a glimpse of the country’s energy future.

A growing number of researchers argue that Canada has been thinking too small about solar power. According to a recent analysis from Simon Fraser University’s Clean Energy Research Group, the country should pivot away from its current patchwork of rooftop installations and instead invest heavily in utility-scale solar mega-projects (vast ground-mounted arrays capable of feeding power directly into the grid).

The case is not that rooftop solar is unhelpful. It is that it may be insufficient (both technically and politically) if Canada is serious about decarbonizing its energy system.

A solar laggard in a sunny world?

Globally, solar power has transformed from a niche technology into one of the fastest-growing sources of electricity. Costs have plummeted, with panel installation prices falling by roughly 90 per cent over the past decade, driven by manufacturing scale and technological advances. Yet Canada has largely sat on the sidelines. Solar accounts for around 4 per cent of global electricity generation, but just 0.5 per cent in Canada, according to the SFU analysis.

That disparity is striking, particularly for a country with vast land area and significant solar potential in regions such as Alberta, Saskatchewan and the interior of British Columbia. Even today, solar contributes only about 1 per cent of Canada’s electricity mix, dwarfed by hydropower, which dominates the system.

In part, this reflects geography: Canada’s long winters and variable sunlight are often cited as barriers. But the deeper explanation lies in policy. Solar deployment in Canada has largely been shaped by incentives for small-scale, decentralized systems in the form of rooftop panels on homes, warehouses and office buildings.

These schemes offer a political advantage: they are visible, popular and relatively easy to implement. Homeowners receive subsidies or net-metering credits; governments can point to individual participation in the energy transition. But, according to the SFU team, this approach has limitations that are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

Utility-scale solar, the researchers contend, offers a fundamentally different proposition. Rather than distributing thousands of small systems across rooftops, it concentrates capacity into large installations—often hundreds of megawatts—linked directly to transmission infrastructure. The economics are compelling. On average, utility-scale solar is around 64 per cent cheaper than residential systems and roughly 50 per cent cheaper than commercial installations, largely because of economies of scale, lower labour costs and simplified permitting.

This is not a uniquely Canadian pattern. Globally, large solar farms now rank among the cheapest sources of new electricity, frequently undercutting fossil fuels on a levelised-cost basis.

There is also a systems-level argument. Distributed solar can fragment electricity networks, introducing variability at thousands of points and requiring complex balancing measures. Large-scale solar, by contrast, can be integrated in a more controlled manner, particularly when paired with battery storage. Plus there is equity. Rooftop solar tends to favour households and businesses that can afford the upfront investment or have access to favourable financing. Utility-scale projects spread costs across the grid, potentially lowering prices for all users rather than privileging early adopters.

Why hesitate?

If the case for large solar farms is so strong, why has Canada not embraced them more fully? Part of the answer lies in familiar obstacles: high upfront capital costs, regulatory complexity and political resistance to large infrastructure projects. Solar farms require space—sometimes thousands of acres—and can trigger local opposition over land use and visual impact.

Here the researchers suggest the concerns may be overstated. The total land footprint required for solar to make a substantial contribution to Canada’s electricity supply is far smaller than many assume, particularly when compared with the land used for agriculture, forestry or fossil fuel extraction. There are also emerging solutions. “Agrivoltaics”, which refers to combining solar panels with crops or grazing land, can allow dual use of land. Projects in British Columbia, for example, are exploring ways to integrate solar arrays into agricultural systems, capturing water and improving soil conditions at the same time.

Agrivoltaics is the dual use of land for solar energy production and agricultural activities, enabling simultaneous electricity generation and farming.

Some researchers suggest that using public land could further ease tensions, reducing the “not in my backyard” effect while enabling strategic siting in high-irradiance regions. Canada would not be starting from scratch. Around the world, utility-scale solar has already proven its viability.

In California, the Solar Star project spans roughly 13 kilometres and generates 579 megawatts of electricity, enough to power hundreds of thousands of homes. Yet in Arizona, the Mesquite Solar complex began as a $600 million, 150 MW installation backed by a federal loan guarantee; it has since expanded into a multi-phase project exceeding 500 MW, illustrating how public financing can catalyse large-scale deployment. Such examples highlight a crucial insight: utility-scale solar often requires strong government support in its early stages, but can become economically self-sustaining once supply chains, financing models and regulatory frameworks mature.

A decentralized policy for a centralized grid

Canada relies heavily on centralized infrastructure. Its electricity system, which is dominated by large hydroelectric stations and nuclear plants, was built around big, capital-intensive projects. Yet when it comes to solar, policy has tended in the opposite direction. The result is a fragmented landscape: more than 100,000 small installations across the country, alongside a relatively modest number of large solar farms.

This fragmentation is reinforced by governance. Electricity regulation in Canada is largely provincial, meaning there is no single national framework for grid interconnection or renewable deployment (Canada lacks a unified national electricity market). Each province controls its own grid, pricing mechanisms, and approval processes). Developers must navigate a patchwork of rules, timelines and incentives that vary widely between jurisdictions.

The report calls for a more coordinated approach, including reforms to grid interconnection, often cited as a bottleneck for new generation projects, and stronger federal leadership to align provincial strategies. This aligns with broader trends in Canadian energy policy. The federal government’s Clean Electricity Regulations, finalised in 2024, aim to drive a transition towards a net-zero electricity system by 2035, requiring substantial investment in new generation capacity. Meeting that demand will likely require a mix of technologies. But solar, the researchers argue, could play a much larger role than it currently does.

None of this suggests that rooftop solar is redundant. Distributed systems can enhance resilience, reduce transmission losses and empower consumers to generate their own energy. Different scales of deployment each have a role to play, yet from an efficiency-of-capital perspective, he argues, utility-scale projects should be prioritised to accelerate the transition.

This is becoming especially true as electricity demand rises. Electrification of transport, heating and industry is expected to push consumption significantly higher in the coming decades, placing pressure on existing generation capacity. Where incremental additions of rooftop panels may struggle to keep pace. Large-scale projects, by contrast, can deliver substantial capacity quickly—provided the policy environment allows it.

There is a deeper shift implied here. For decades, Canada has viewed solar as a marginal technology—useful at the edges, but not central to the system. Hydropower, with its vast dams and reservoirs, has dominated the narrative. However, climate change is already challenging that model. Droughts and shifting precipitation patterns have begun to affect hydroelectric output in some regions, highlighting the need for greater diversification. A handful of rooftops may signal progress. yet if Canada’s energy transition is to gather real momentum, the future may lie in landscapes filled, horizon to horizon, with light.

India considering Canada as potential crude oil supplier, envoy says