CALGARY, Alberta, May 28 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell Plc
has put an Alberta oil sands project on the block, six
years after acquiring it as part of a C$2.4 billion ($2.3
billion) acquisition near the height of the last Canadian energy
boom.

Shell aims to sell its Orion steam-driven project in
northeastern Alberta. Regulators have granted Shell approval for
two 10,000 bpd production phases, though current production is
just 5,000 bpd, according to Scotia Waterous, the oil major’s
financial adviser in the sales process.

CALGARY, Alberta, May 24 (Reuters) – A strike at Canadian
Pacific Railway Ltd is unlikely to drag on long enough
to prompt a return to bargain-basement price discounts for
Canadian crude oil, growing volumes of which is moving to market
by train as pipelines run nearly full.

In addition, far greater volumes move on trains from North
Dakota’s booming Bakken shale oil region, where the carrier’s
workers remain on the job, another factor that should prevent a
price collapse, at least for awhile, analysts said.

CALGARY, Alberta, May 23 (Reuters) – Kinder Morgan Energy
Partners has reduced the size of a planned expansion of
its pipeline to the Pacific Coast after fewer shippers than
expected signed 20-year contracts that would allow surging
Canadian oil supplies to be shipped to Asia, the company said on
Wednesday.

Kinder Morgan now plans a $4.1 billion expansion of its
Trans Mountain pipeline to the Vancouver area from Alberta,
increasing capacity to 750,000 barrels a day from 300,000. That
is down from last month’s estimate of 850,000.

CALGARY, Alberta, May 17 (Reuters) – Production in the
Canadian oil sands is likely to increase at a much faster clip
than the industry currently projects, an analyst said, putting
more pressure on pipeline companies to vastly expand capacity
out of Alberta.

The forecast comes as companies plot billions of dollars
worth of new pipeline routes to stave off costly bottlenecks.
The latest is Enbridge Inc’s plan, announced Wednesday,
to spend C$3.2 billion ($3.15 billion) on pipelines, most of it
to get crude from Alberta to Eastern Canada.