Ninepoint's ENRG ETF bets on North American energy independence

A new NYSE-listed fund bundles oil, nuclear, pipelines and critical minerals into one portfolio as AI and reshoring drive power demand.

By Disrupts Editorial Team Sun, 27 September 2026 AI level 2 of 5

AI level 2 of 5: drafted by our AI editorial assistant from the company's announcement; fact-checked, edited and signed off by Mark Walker, Editorial Director. What the levels mean

A data center aisle with rows of black server racks showing glowing green and blue LED lights, lit by bright overhead skylights.

Toronto-based Ninepoint Partners has launched ENRG, its first US-listed exchange-traded fund, positioning it as a single-portfolio play across the four pillars of North American energy independence: hydrocarbon production, pipeline and grid infrastructure, nuclear and uranium, and the critical minerals required to expand electrification. The fund began trading on NYSE Arca on 22 September 2026, carrying an expense ratio of 0.65% and targeting a portfolio of between 25 and 50 equity securities drawn primarily from Canada, the United States and Mexico.

The timing is deliberate. Ninepoint's pitch rests on a convergence of demand signals that would have seemed like distinct macro risks even three years ago: the power appetite of AI data centres, the electricity requirements of industrial reshoring, grid electrification investment, and a geopolitical environment in which secure supply chains for both fuel and strategic materials now command a premium. "Energy security stopped being an abstraction with Russia's war in Ukraine and China's export controls on rare earths," said Eric Nuttall, Partner and Senior Portfolio Manager at Ninepoint. "Securing dependable supplies of fuel and critical materials is now a priority for governments and businesses planning new factories, data centers and power generation."

AI, data centres and the new power calculus

The inclusion of AI and data centre demand as a core investment thesis is notable, and it reflects a structural shift in how energy-sector capital allocators are thinking about load growth. Hyperscaler buildouts across North America are creating long-dated, contracted electricity demand that did not exist in material quantities five years ago. That has reinforced the investment case for baseload generation, particularly nuclear, which ENRG explicitly targets through uranium and reactor-operator equity exposure. The fund's four-bucket structure (supply, transport, baseload power, electrification inputs) mirrors the architecture that power-purchase-agreement-driven data centre developers need on the other side of the table.

Canada's role in this thesis is significant. The release notes that in 2025 Canada remained the largest single source of US crude oil imports and supplied virtually all US pipeline natural gas imports. Cross-border infrastructure connecting Canadian resources to US refineries and power markets is, in Ninepoint's framing, a strategic asset rather than a legacy commodity system.

Convergence capital and the critical-minerals angle

Beyond hydrocarbons and nuclear, the ENRG mandate extends to copper and critical-mineral producers, a deliberate bridge from energy into the materials economy that underpins grid expansion, battery storage and defence-adjacent supply chains. This positions the fund at the intersection of the energy transition and the broader critical-materials competition between the US, Canada and China. Beijing's export controls on rare earths, cited explicitly in the release, have elevated North American mining assets in the eyes of both sovereign and institutional investors who previously viewed them as pure commodity plays.

For cross-sector allocators, the structural logic is clear: AI compute capacity requires reliable power; reliable power increasingly requires nuclear and grid-scale electrification; electrification requires copper and critical minerals; and energy security requires control over the supply chain from resource extraction through to transmission. ENRG packages that entire chain into a single actively managed vehicle, giving institutional and sophisticated retail investors access to a thesis that would otherwise require exposure across four or five distinct sector mandates.

Ninepoint manages over $8 billion in assets under management and institutional contracts. The fund is sub-advised by Ninepoint Partners LP, with Tidal Investments LLC serving as investment adviser and Foreside Fund Services as distributor. Whether the active management overlay, assessed via a proprietary scoring framework that weights North American exposure, strategic importance and financial strength, can outperform passive energy-infrastructure alternatives over a full cycle remains the central open question for prospective allocators. As a newly launched vehicle with no operating track record, ENRG will face that scrutiny from the first quarterly report onwards.