Canada NEWS

Canada’s largest oilsands companies have formed a new advocacy group they say will help to advance the sustainable development and operation of their industry. The Oil Sands Alliance was established Jan. 1, with membership consisting of oilsands producers Suncor Energy Inc., Cenovus Energy Inc., Imperial Energy Ltd., Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. and ConocoPhillips. It is not clear whether the new organization will be involved in political lobbying or how exactly it will be structured.

TORONTO—Major oil companies, under pressure from investors and environmentalists, are fleeing Canada’s oil sands, the fourth-largest oil reserve in the world and by some measures one of the most environmentally unfriendly. Investment in existing projects has stalled, and banks are refusing to fund new ones. Nevertheless, oil production there is expected to continue for at least two more decades. Local companies have stepped in to keep working the existing mines and wells. Last year, the oil sands were on track to deliver more oil than ever.

A deep-freeze in Canada and Northern U.S. is disrupting oil flows, causing a surge in crude prices just as American stockpiles are declining. With temperatures from North Dakota to Northern Alberta below zero Fahrenheit (-18 Celcius), TC Energy Corp.’s Keystone pipeline was shut late Tuesday, with the cold slowing oil flows and making it hard to restore service. In North Dakota’s Bakken shale, production has started to succumb to the freeze, sending local crude prices to their highest since November. Canadian oil has also jumped.

KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 27): Drilling activity in the US and international markets has continued to pick up, according to Baker Hughes Tool Company. Baker Hughes is an industrial service company and one of the world's largest oilfield service companies. Since 1944, it began weekly counts of US and Canadian drilling activity, and initiated its monthly international rig count in 1975. As of Wednesday (Nov 24), the US had added six rigs from the prior week to 569, up from 249 a year earlier. Canada added 69 rigs to 800 from a week before, up from 171 rigs from a year ago.

Oil prices may have recovered to pre-pandemic levels, but for Canada’s oil and gas industry, recovering from what was arguably the worst year in its history is going to take a couple of years, analysts say. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates the global demand for petroleum products won’t be back to pre-pandemic levels until 2023 and may never return to “normal. As of mid-week last week, Western Canadian Select (WCS) was trading at about C$52 per barrel, compared with C$66 per barrel for West Texas Intermediate (WTI), which are pre-pandemic prices. Natural gas prices were not nearly as affected by the pandemic.

Exxon reserves of the dense, heavy crude extracted from Western Canada’s sandy bogs dropped by 98%. In practical terms, the revision clipped Exxon’s future growth prospects until oil prices rise, costs slide or technological advances make it profitable to drill those fields.The reserves accounting doesn’t mean Exxon is closing up shop or walking away from Canada because the company can bring them back onto its ledger as crude prices rise.

Canada’s Hydro Energy has signed a long-term contract with chemical company Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund (TSE:CHE.UN) to offer green hydrogen for its commercial truck fleets at a fixed price and 5% below the price the partner would typically pay for diesel.

Alberta, which spent C$1.5 billion ($1.2 billion) to help jump start construction of the project, may resort to a North American Free Trade Agreement provision allowing compensation claims for lost investments, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said. While NAFTA was replaced by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement during the Trump administration, the rule remains in place during a phase-out period.

Suncor Energy Inc. has reported a second-quarter net loss of $614 million after it cut back on production to deal with sharply reduced crude prices amid lower global energy demand. Suncor's total production was 18.5% less than the 803,900 boe/d in the prior-year quarter, as it took measures including shutting down one of the two production trains at its Fort Hills oilsands mine in northern Alberta.

U.S. oil major ConocoPhillips said on Wednesday that it agreed to buy land from Kelt Exploration Ltd in Canada’s Montney shale oil play, in a $375 million deal. The deal allows ConocoPhillips to extend its existing position at an attractive cost. It comes three years after Houston-based ConocoPhillips sold much of its Canadian assets to Cenovus Energy, part of a multi-year withdrawal of foreign producers from Canada.

The Hibernia oil platform in Canada was shut after a leakage of drilling and production fluids. Hibernia sits roughly 315 km (200 miles) east of St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador. The sheen was observed 2.5 kilometres (1.55 miles) from the 220,000-barrel-per-day platform and all personnel are safe, adding that the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board has been notified.

The Canadian government-owned Trans Mountain pipeline has been shut down since early Saturday following an oil spill at a pump station in British Columbia. The pipeline crew are responding to a release at its Sumas Pump Station in Abbotsford, British Columbia, after an alarm was received early in the morning, Trans Mountain Corp said in a statement. The spill has been contained and cleanup is underway, the company said.

As the coronavirus pandemic and low oil prices continue to strangle the market, Canadian oil and gas firms are looking to cut over C$2.4 billion to C$3.5 billion ($1.7 billion-$2.5 billion) from financial budgets for 2020. The latest in the line of producers releasing capital spending cuts include Crescent Point Energy Corp., NuVista Energy Ltd., Vermilion Energy Inc. and Enerplus Corp. Husky Energy is planning to cut C$1 billion in expenditure.

TGS has completed its study of carbon capture storage in Canada for a major oil and gas company. This study helped TGS understand the latest geological carbon storage locations onshore and offshore. Its collaboration with Canadian Discovery Limited (CDL) provided with world-class basin evaluation expertise, subsurface data library, and geological knowledge. The activity was carried out throughout British Columbia and led to the creation of framework for carbon storage assessment.

Canadian Oilifled firm, Shawcor Ltd has entered into a contract with Subsea 7 through its pipe coating division, to deliver thermal insulation coating services for the Woodside Sangomar Offshore Project in Senegal. The contract, valued at CAD$30-$50 million, will see Shawcor providing the required services from its Orkanger, Norway facility. The work will commence in the first quarter of 2021 and slated for execution in 2Q2021.

As Canada’s energy sector struggles with sluggish growth, the layoff trend continues with the latest layoffs coming from Husky Energy. The firm laid off a number of employees yesterday, spokeswoman for Husky said. The sackings come a day right after the federal election in Canada, where Prime Minister Trudeau failed to secure an outright majority of seats. Concerns of further delay in the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion are now worrying the industry.

Canadian EPC major, SNC-Lavalin has secured a contract from Shell Australia for the provision of operations and maintenance workforce for the QGC upstream asset. The three-year-long contract will see SNC-Lavalin providing approximately 300 personnel to continue the existing operation and maintenance program for Shell. The QGC asset comprises of 24 field compression stations, six central gas processing plants (CPP), five sales stations and one power station.

Subsea engineering giant, Oceaneering International has secured a contract to support a decommissioning project in Canada. The scope of the contract includes internal cutting, external cutting, and local soil displacement. The award is first in the line of decommissioning contracts for Oceaneering in Canada. Work is slated for commencement in 2Q2020.