Canadian oil sands in shackles

Producers tighten their belts even as financial conditions rally and midstream expansion looms

Major oil sands producers would never admit publicly what the exodus of non-Canadian oil companies has made patently clear—that their glory days are behind them, with the world moving towards rapid decarbonisation. But they appear to have come to a similar conclusion privately, based on their continuing reluctance to spend on capital projects. And this is despite benchmark light-sweet crude prices well over $60/bl and significant new pipeline capacity finally coming online. Calagary-based Enbridge’s Line 3 Replacement project should provide an additional 370,000bl/d of export capacity for Western Canada by early 2022 by the latest. The Canadian government’s Trans Mountain Expansion project w