Vancouver's Secret Resource Economy Revealed

The city of Vancouver may seem like a post-industrial economy, but it's actually a major player in the resource industry. The city has become the head office, trading floor, and export gateway for the natural resources extracted from other parts of British Columbia and Canada.

A 1969 coat of arms granted to the City of Vancouver features a logger and a fisherman holding up a shield, with a ship crowning it and the sea running through the middle. This emblem tells the story of how the city's economy is built on natural resources, even though there are no working mines or oil wells within city limits.

The Port of Vancouver is the largest port in Canada and one of the busiest ports in North America. It handles $365 billion worth of trade each year, mostly consisting of natural resources such as coal, grain, potash, crude oil, and forest products. The port's operations support over 132,000 jobs across Canada, pay $9.3 billion in wages, and add $16.3 billion to GDP.

In the last two years, Metro Vancouver has seen significant investment in new infrastructure for the resource industry. The Trans Mountain expansion, completed in May 2024, has nearly tripled the capacity of the pipeline connecting Alberta's oil sands to the West Coast. This has led to a fivefold increase in crude movements from Alberta to British Columbia and a surge in crude exports through B.C.

The value of crude oil shipped through B.C. in the first year of the Trans Mountain expansion was nearly $13.9 billion, up from barely existing before 2024. The region also has a growing liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry, with the Woodfibre LNG project on Howe Sound near Squamish expected to produce 2.1 million tonnes of LNG per year.