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.

Orion came with the company’s acquisition of Blackrock Ventures in 2006. In 2010, Shell took a $1 billion writedown on the assets, which also included holdings in a region called Seal.

According to the Scotia Waterous website, the project generated operating income of C$15.6 million in the first quarter of this year. It has been operating for a decade.

It is a steam-assisted gravity drainage project, in which the company injects steam into the earth, loosening up the bitumen so it can be pumped to the surface.

Production comes from 22 well pairs on an eight-section lease located 30 km (19 miles) northwest of Cold Lake, Alberta.

Shell officials were not immediately available to comment on the possible sale, for which bids are due by mid- to late July.

CALGARY, May 17 (Reuters) – Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd Chief Executive Fred Green c onceded defeat i n a long bitter proxy battle with New York activist shareholder William Ackman on Thursday, res igning from his job and clearing the way for a management overhaul at the country’s second-biggest railroad.

The boardroom coup, a rarity in Canada’s conservative corporate culture and particularly for such a venerable company, burnishes Ackman’s reputation as a tenacious activist investor.

The early morning announcement was a big climbdown for CP, which for months had backed 55-year-old Green as the best man for the CEO job, arguing that customers were concerned by a change in senior management.

CP said Chairman John Cleghorn, Green and four other directors would not stand for re-election at its annual shareholder meeting on Thursday, opening the door to all seven nominees from Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management to join the 16-member board.

“Ackman obviously delivered his proxies and the initial count showed it wasn’t close,” said Brad Allen, senior vice president at proxy solicitation firm Laurel Hill Advisory Group, which was not involved in the conflict.

“He must have delivered his proxies yesterday (or maybe earlier) and likely suggested that certain of board members resign to avoid embarrassment at the actual meeting.”

Ackman, whose fund is CP’s largest shareholder with a 14.1 percent stake, has been the driving force for change since announcing his investment in the Calgary-based company in October.

TORONTO/CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – Enbridge Inc, Canada’s No. 2 pipeline company, reported a 14 percent jump in quarterly earnings on Wednesday and said it remains committed to building the controversial C$5.5 billion ($5.5 billion) Northern Gateway pipeline despite fierce opposition from communities along the route.

At its annual meeting in Toronto on Wednesday, the Calgary-based company was greeted by protesters from environmental groups and from some of the British Columbia aboriginal groups that have staunchly opposed the project over worries that oil spills could contaminate their water supplies.

If built, Northern Gateway would carry 525,000 barrels per day of Alberta oil sands crude to a deepwater port at Kitimat on the British Columbia’s Pacific Coast.

“We are the wall that will stop this pipeline dream,” said Chief Jackie Thomas of the Saik’uz First Nation in British Columbia. Thomas traveled to the meeting with other protesters on a train journey organized by the Yinka Dene Alliance, a coalition of British Columbia First Nations opposed to the project. “We’ve looked at it and made our decision,” Thomas said.

The line, which Enbridge expects to be in service by 2017, would allow Canadian oil producers to tap high-paying Asian markets. It has the backing of the Canadian government, which has said the project is in the national interest even as regulatory hearings proceed.

Despite protests by native groups, Enbridge Chief Executive Pat Daniel said he is certain he can win the backing of aboriginal communities, which are known as First Nations.

“The project is so much in Canada’s national best interest that we’re committed to working with First Nations that are presently opposed, to bring them onside,” he told reporters following the company’s meeting, where he faced questions from the line’s opponents. “Even (after) the meeting, I’ve chatted further to try to find some sort of common ground, so that we can make this a win-win for First Nations, for communities along the right of way, for all of Canada.”

CALGARY, Alberta, May 4 (Reuters) – Canadian Natural Resources Ltd, the country’s largest independent oil producer, said on Friday it is holding the line on costs as it expands in the northern Alberta oil sands, the latest producer to play down fears of a new round of hyperinflation in the region.

The company expects to spend nearly C$2 billion ($2.01 billion) this year advancing a plan to increase production capacity at its Horizon oil sands project to 250,000 barrels per day from a current 110,000.

After the cost of the project’s initial phase came in C$9.7 billion, half again its original budget, Canadian Natural rejigged its expansion plan, breaking what had been a massive single project into 46 parts and limiting annual spending to no more than C$2.5 billion.

It also restricted the size of the construction workforce at Horizon to 5,500 at any one time. At the peak of the first phase of construction, there were 10,000 workers at the site.

The company said the strategy is working. Even though rising construction activity in the oil sands threatens to increase competition for skilled labor and materials, Canadian Natural said its costs are well under control.

“At this point our strategy’s working well and we’re on track with costs running slightly under our cost estimates,” Steve Laut, the company’s president, said on a conference call. “We expect this strategy of breaking into smaller pieces, stopping and redefining scope, and rebidding if necessary will continue to pay dividends going forward, even as market conditions potentially heat up.”

Inflation plagued the oil sands industry before the 2008 financial crisis as project budgets routinely swelled, with costs for some more than doubling from original estimates.

CALGARY, Alberta, May 2 (Reuters) – Imperial Oil Ltd is considering joining a growing number of companies planning liquefied natural gas plants on Canada’s West Coast as a way to boost returns on vast reserves of natural gas in British Columbia and Alberta, its chief executive said on Wednesday.

Imperial CEO Bruce March told reporters after the company’s annual meeting that planning for such a development is still in the “very early days” but that a plant could take gas from the Horn River shale-gas field it is developing along with its majority owner, Exxon Mobil Corp, as well as other fields, and send it to high-paying Asian markets.

“The good thing we look at, in terms of LNG from Western Canada, is there appears to be huge and substantial growth opportunities for gas demands in Asia,” March said. “That’s the most promising sign. That combination, with the near-term outlook for gas … makes this an opportunity that a lot of companies are looking at, including ours.”

Northeastern British Columbia contains massive reserves of natural gas trapped in shale, with fields like the Horn River and the Montney containing hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of the fuel.

However, Western Canadian producers are being pushed out of their traditional American markets by low-cost U.S. shale-gas supplies. That has prompted a number of companies to look for overseas buyers for the fuel.

Canadian regulators have already awarded LNG export licenses to two proposed LNG producers; Kitimat LNG, owned by gas-producers Apache Corp, Encana Corp and EOG Resources Inc, and BC LNG, backed by a cooperative of gas producers as well as B.C.’s Haisla First Nation.

Other companies, including Royal Dutch Shell Plc, and Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) are also in the early stages of planning their own liquefaction facilities.

* TransAlta, partners, cancel carbon-capture Project Pioneer

* Project would have a captured 1 mln tonnes of CO2/yr

* Lack of emissions market, CO2 buyers doomed project

* TransAlta Q1 profit falls 56 pct; shares down 1.8 pct

By Scott Haggett

CALGARY, Alberta, April 26 (Reuters – TransAlta Corp has abandoned plans to build a C$1.4 billion ($1.42 billion) carbon capture and storage facility at an Alberta coal-fired electricity plant because the company had no buyers for the carbon dioxide and no way to credit from the plan.

TransAlta, whose first quarter profit tumbled on weak power prices and maintenance costs, said on Thursday it would not proceed with Project Pioneer, a carbon-capture demonstration plant with partners Enbridge Inc and Capital Power Corp . The project was also backed by C$779 million of funds from the Alberta and federal governments.

CALGARY, Alberta, April 25 (Reuters) – Three large Canadian oil companies pumped out first-quarter earnings o n W ednesday that mostly missed expectations, but investors were cheered by promises of higher output and steps to deal with depressed natural gas markets and prices for heavy oil that lag far behind those for international crude.

Encana Corp, Canada’s largest natural gas producer, benefited from its hedging program as gas prices slumped to 10-year lows, but still had to fend off questions about whether it was time to put the company up for sale.

Profit at Nexen Inc, which is working to iron out operational bugs after a disappointing 2011, was lower than expected. But production is meeting forecasts as major projects such as the Long Lake oil sands venture in Alberta and Buzzard oil field in the North Sea run more reliably.

Cenovus Energy Inc, the oil sands producer and refiner, reported higher earnings due to a jump in output and rich refining margins.

“Those exposed to North American gas are going to face challenges this quarter, those that have refining operations should continue to do well within that segment, given where margins have been, and those that have more exposure to a Brent oil-price environment will get the higher netbacks, and we’ve certainly seen that in Nexen’s results today,” said Lanny Pendill, analyst with Edward Jones.

Shares in Encana, worth more than C$40 each in 2008, have tumbled to near C$18 on the Toronto Stock Exchange because of weak gas prices. To shore up its balance sheet, it has been selling stakes in some shale-gas fields to other companies, primarily from Asia.

Chief Executive Randy Eresman said Encana is looking for a buyer interested in taking a 10 percent stake in its Cutbank Ridge gas field in northeastern British Columbia.

CALGARY, Alberta, April 24 (Reuters) – Alberta remains a strong supporter of its oil industry after a provincial election that left the Progressive Conservatives in power to focus on new markets for Canadian crude and to try to persuade Washington to let the Keystone XL Pipeline go ahead.

The Conservatives, led by Alison Redford, won 61 of 87 seats in the provincial legislature in Monday’s election, capturing 44 percent of the popular vote despite lagging in opinion polls throughout the campaign.

The victory came despite lingering resentment in the powerful oil industry over an attempt four years ago by Redford’s predecessor as premier, Ed Stelmach, to raise royalties on oil and gas production.

That pushed many angry oil and gas producers into the arms of the new Wildrose Party, where they offered enough support to turn a right-wing splinter group into the Conservatives’ main challenger in the hard-fought election.

It’s a lesson the Conservatives are unlikely to forget as they seek to boost oil and gas output and find new markets for rising output from the province’s oil sands.

“You don’t take on big oil. The Conservatives have learned that,” said Peter McCormick, a political science professor at the University of Lethbridge in southern Alberta. “So (Redford) won’t. The royalty issue is dead.”

The Conservatives, however, actually increased their share of the vote in Calgary, where most of Alberta’s energy industry is based, winning 20 of the city’s 24 seats in the legislature.

HIGH RIVER, Alberta, April 23 (Reuters) – Alberta’s Progressive Conservative Party fended off its biggest challenge in more than four decades of rule on Monday, winning a convincing majority as voters balked at handing Canada’s top energy-producing province to an upstart right-wing movement that promised traditional values and fiscal restraint.

The ruling party of Premier Alison Redford was winning or leading in 59 of 87 voting districts in the western province of 3.8 million people, garnering 44 percent of votes cast.

Its biggest challenger, the Wildrose Party led by Danielle Smith, was leading or elected in 21 districts and had 35 percent of the vote.

It was a battle of two right-of-center visions in the province that is the largest foreign energy supplier to the United States, and a growing economic force within Canada.

Wildrose had promised to pay out a slice of the province’s oil and gas revenue to residents and limit participation in some federal programs, while Redford’s PCs – now one of the country’s lon gest-ever pol itical dynasties – promised to increase Alberta’s role within the country.

“Every Albertan knew that this election was about choice,” Redford said in her victory speech. “A choice to put up walls or build bridges … Tonight Alberta chose to build bridges.”

The Wildrose, who are further to the political right than the Progressive Conservatives and share many political philosophies with the U.S. Tea Party movement, had led in the polls. But the party suffered after two candidates made intemperate comments about sexual orientation and race.

CALGARY, Alberta, April 17 (Reuters) – Buoyed by lingering resentment against an entrenched government hit by a series of petty scandals, Alberta’s upstart Wildrose party looks set to take Canada’s most conservative province even further to the right.

Led by 41-year-old Danielle Smith, a charismatic former journalist with ties to the Reform movement that launched the political career of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Wildrose has moved past its roots as a minor protest party with into a big-tent par t y that has garnered wide support in advance of elections scheduled for April 23.

With a platform that includes paying voters a slice of the government’s take from the oil industry and a promise not to raise taxes, Wildrose has taken a strong lead in the polls over rookie Premier Alison Redford’s Progressive Conservatives and has polarized the province’s politics in the process.

“People are increasingly looking at this (election) as a referendum on whether it’s the PCs or Wildrose,” said Bruce Cameron, president of polling firm Return on Insight. “The Wildrose have run a good campaign and increased Danielle Smith’s popularity and, in contrast, the Conservatives have run a perplexing campaign.”

Elections in Alberta, a province that is the largest source of U.S. oil imports, have mostly been a cakewalk for the Progressive Conservatives since 1971.

But a series of petty scandals – most recently a scheme that saw members of the legislature receive C$1,000 per month for sitting on a committee that held no meetings – has soured many voters.

Rather than turning to the centrist Liberals, the traditional opposition party in the province, Alberta voters are now deciding how right wing they want their government to be. Wildrose, with just four seats in the provincial legislature, suddenly has a shot at power.