Category: Canada

CALGARY, Alberta—About a decade ago, a Shanghai-based real-estate mogul began amassing 100,000 acres in southeastern Saskatchewan near the North Dakota border. Chinese billionaire Ni Zhaoxing, shown in London last October. Zhongrong Group/Bloomberg News Few people expected it at the time, but the surrounding Bakken Shale formation was on the cusp of revolutionizing North America’s energy industry, creating oil giants of onetime small companies. But Ni Zhaoxing’s operation—a rare, early foray by Chinese private equity into the North American energy sector—has little output to show for its bet, the amount of which it hasn’t disclosed. Mr. Ni in 2007 targeted production of 20,000 barrels of oil a day within Canada Capital Energy Corp.’s first five years of business. Yet the company pumped 567 barrels of oil a day last year, according to the Saskatchewan government, and has forecast production in the mid-thousands of barrels of oil and natural-gas liquids by […]

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Western Canadian crude may be crossing the Atlantic Ocean soon as Canada’s oil companies seek buyers outside North America. Suncor Energy Inc. (SU) , the largest Canadian oil company by market capitalization, loaded its first tanker of heavy crude out of Canada’s eastern coast this week. Enbridge Inc. (ENB) ’s Line 9B is scheduled to complete its reversal next month, bringing 300,000 more barrels a day to the Saint Lawrence River, which empties into the Atlantic. Canada’s search for overseas markets comes as its crude production is rising along with that of its traditional buyer, the U.S. Combined output of those countries has risen 51 percent in the past five years to 12.2 million barrels a day, according to their governments. Unlike the U.S., Canada has no restrictions on exporting crude. “As we get more and more production in North America, prices will get lower and companies will have […]

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CALGARY, Alberta, Sept. 12 (UPI) — Total crude oil exports from Canada in June were about 38,000 barrels per day less than the previous month, government data show, and on par with the average. The Canadian National Energy Board released data from total oil exports through June , the last full month for which data are available. Total exports for June were 2.8 million barrels per day, about 38,000 bpd, or roughly 1 percent, less than the previous month. So far this year, Canadian exports have averaged about 2.78 million bpd. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has sought to add a layer of diversity to an energy export economy that depends almost exclusively on the United States . Canadian exports to the United States for the second week of September are up about 27 percent compared with the same time last year. For the week ending Sept. 5, the […]

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FORT MCMURRAY, Alberta—A group of Canadian oil sands producers, including some of the world’s biggest energy companies, is prepared to commit to specific environmental impact reduction targets later this month. The plan marks the first commitment by the industry consortium, which was set up two and a half years ago in response to criticism about the rapid pace of development of oil sands projects in northern Alberta’s boreal forests. "We are in a position to launch our first two performance goals within two weeks," Dan Wicklum, Chief Executive of Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance, said Tuesday. That environmental-technology partnership, known as Cosia, brings together the R&D departments of 14 energy producers, including the Canadian units of ConocoPhillips , Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC. Mr. Wicklum declined to detail the voluntary commitments, but said they apply to water use at oil-sands strip mines and in subterranean oil […]

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The statistics of 2013 speak for themselves — record grain output in the Canadian Prairies of 76 million mt and record crude-by-rail (CBR) loadings from neighboring Alberta and Saskatchewan of 250,000 b/d. And with Canadian oil sands production continuing to rise, there’s a growing concern over the possibility of a standoff between the grain and oil industries for rail space and locomotives. Adding to that concern is the fact that last year neither the number of grain hoppers nor the tank cars being hauled by Canadian Pacific and Canadian National Railway increased significantly to keep pace with the unprecedented demand to move both commodities from interior regions to consuming markets. But while there are no new hoppers to be delivered over the short term, the order books of tank car manufacturers are bulging with 40,000 additional cars due to be delivered by late 2015 to carry more crude from […]

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The federal government has quietly approved major tar sands transportation projects with unstudied environmental effects — managing to circumvent the executive branch’s impact analysis that paralyzed development of the Keystone XL pipeline and bolstered activists’ claims that the project is dangerous and damaging to the environment. Over the past few years, the Keystone pipeline has become a household name. The controversy caused by Canadian pipeline company TransCanada’s project, which would bring hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil from Canada’s tar sands to the U.S. each day, has ignited an environmental movement across the country, and has elicited responses from top U.S. politicians, including President Obama. But the U.S. has approved other cross-border tar sands transportation projects with little fanfare. Those projects include one by TransCanada competitor Enbridge to build a facility in Illinois to transport crude oil from the tar sands via train, which was approved by the […]

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