Spot market is the market where goods are traded for immediate delivery. Canada is the great exporter of a different commodities, and it has a number of marine pathways, where those commodities are delivered by freighted tankers. For example, there are prospects that Canadian natural gas can be transported to Europe: according to the article of Sapkota et al. (2018), Europe is in need of the natural gas.
The most of its import is from Russia, which is considered as unreliable. The North American gas is considered as much cheaper than the European. There are several routes of transportation: by tankers from the West Coast or the East Coast, to which the gas should be transferred via pipelines. According to the study of Giguère et al. (2017), the number of freighted tankers which comes via the Canadian Arctic seas, have increased from 2003 to 2013, while the number of ships in total have decreased. It means that the popularity of goods transportation is increasing and the tanker market is rising.
The main obstacle for natural gas transportation is the price: the transportation of the natural gas is much more expensive than oil. The gas transportation require liquefaction before the transportation and re-gasification after, which are additional costs (Sapkota et al., 2018). Another obstacle is that according to the study of Colton et al. (2016), there are protests against the active energy projects, such as natural gas production, due to environment concerns and the First Nation protests. In that way, they hinder the development of the gas and tanker markets.
One can conclude that, despite the gas prices are larger than those of oil, the gas demand creates prospects for Canada to evaluate its gas sources and start to trade it. The activity of tankers is increasing: thus, it is a demand for goods transportation. While the protests against the natural gas sources exploring may prevent the development of goods transportation, such development will create a number of workplaces: both on tankers and gas sources.
References
Colton, J., Fast, S., Gattinger, M., Gehman, J., & Winter, J. (2016). Energy projects, social licence, public acceptance and regulatory systems in Canada: A white paper. SSRN Electronic Journal. Published. Web.
Giguère, M. A., Comtois, C., & Slack, B. (2017). Constraints on Canadian Arctic maritime connections. Case Studies on Transport Policy, 5(2), 355–366. Web.
Sapkota, K., Oni, A. O., & Kumar, A. (2018). Techno-economic and life cycle assessments of the natural gas supply chain from production sites in Canada to north and southwest Europe. Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering, 52, 401–409. Web.