CALGARY, Alberta, Jan 15 (Reuters) – Canadian heavy oil
prices, pressured by a combination of tight pipeline capacity
and delays in a U.S. refinery retooling, have fallen close to
the trigger point for companies to begin shutting off some
production, an analyst said on Tuesday.

Prices for Western Canada Select (WCS) heavy blend, a widely
quoted grade, have fallen recently to around $50 a barrel, less
than half the price of a barrel of international benchmark
Brent, pressuring the bottom lines of producers.

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – Enbridge Inc (ENB.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) wants to change how users of its Canada-United States oil pipeline network approach day-to-day operations – from delivering oil at one end to receiving it at the other – so the industry can cope with several more months of tight capacity.

Overbooked pipelines on Enbridge’s two-million-barrel-a-day system have played a major role in the deepening discounts for heavy crude that are pressuring the oil industry. Billions of dollars in expansions are planned but they will be gradual, with a first tranche expected by the end of March.

CALGARY, Alberta, Jan 10 (Reuters) – Kinder Morgan Energy
Partners has boosted the size of a proposed expansion of
its Canadian oil pipeline by almost a third to $5.4 billion
after signing up more customers for the project aimed at
carrying growing volumes of oil sands-derived crude to the
Pacific Coast, it said on Thursday.

Kinder Morgan said it now hopes to expand its Trans Mountain
Pipeline between Edmonton, Alberta, and Vancouver to 890,000
barrels per day, up from the previously proposed 750,000. It
currently ships 300,000 bpd.

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said on Friday it is moving forward with the next major offshore oil project in the North Atlantic, the $14 billion Hebron development off the Newfoundland coast, boosting its investments in Canada’s most oil-rich regions.

Exxon Mobil, the U.S. oil major, said it will produce 150,000 barrels of oil a day at Hebron using a massive concrete gravity-base structure like the one employed at the Hibernia project, which has been operating in the iceberg-prone region since the late 1990s.

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – A top risk-management analyst warned on Friday that a decision by Washington on TransCanada Corp’s (TRP.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Keystone XL pipeline could get delayed again into next summer, adding more pressure to already deeply discounted Canadian oil prices.

The U.S. State Department has said it will rule on the $5.3 billion Canada-to-Nebraska pipeline by the end of March, assuming Nebraska approves a new route that skirts an environmentally sensitive region in the state.

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – A trio of small oil and gas companies said on Thursday they have agreed to combine to form a mid-sized Canadian producer, hoping a focus on light crude and monthly dividend policy will generate more value for investors than they were garnering individually.

Pace Oil and Gas Ltd (PCE.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), AvenEx Energy Corp (AVF.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Charger Energy Corp (CHX.V: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said they would offer new shares in a combined operation known as Spyglass Resources Corp that will produce about 18,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day in various regions of Alberta.

CALGARY, Alberta, Dec 19 (Reuters) – Depressed Canadian
crude oil prices have the government of Alberta worried it might
not meet its target of moving back to budget surpluses next
year, the Western Canadian province’s finance minister said on
Wednesday.

As a result, all government departments will be examining
ways to hold the line on spending in the coming weeks as heavy
oil prices keep lagging expectations, Finance Minister Doug
Horner told reporters.

CALGARY, Alberta, Dec 18 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell Plc
has scrapped plans for a coalbed methane gas project
near Canada’s Pacific Coast in the face of local opposition and
weak natural gas prices, ending an eight-year battle over
development, the company and the British Columbia government
said on Tuesday.

In addition, the provincial oil and gas authority said it
will not issue any more drilling rights in the Klappan area,
which the local aboriginal community had identified as having
special cultural and spiritual significance.

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – The prospect of a new U.S. secretary of state favoring tougher carbon policy should not worsen the odds of the Keystone XL oil pipeline being approved, the chief executive of TransCanada Corp (TRP.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the contentious project’s proponent, said on Monday.

TransCanada CEO Russ Girling also said that recent deep discounts on Canadian heavy crude and a boom in shipping oil by rail show that the country’s export pipeline network is close to being filled up, highlighting the need for more capacity.

CALGARY, Alberta, Dec 13 (Reuters) – PetroChina
will pay Encana Corp C$2.2 billion ($2.2 billion) for a
49.9 percent stake in a rich Alberta natural gas prospect owned
by the Canadian company, a first test of Canada’s new guidelines
for major energy investments by foreign state-owned enterprises.

Under the deal, which follows a failed joint-venture attempt
by the pair in 2011, a unit of PetroChina known as Phoenix
Duvernay Gas will take the nearly-half interest in Encana’s
Duvernay play in west-central Alberta, estimated to contain 9
billion barrels of oil equivalent