Alberta adjusts crude curtailment program
The provincial government has made major changes to timeframes and volumes
Alberta has extended the sunset clause of its crude curtailment program by a year to 31 December 2020 and has doubled the upper threshold for oil producers' exemption to 20,000bl/d. The province is attempting to achieve multiple goals with these changes—keeping western Canadian crude prices at relatively high levels, supporting financially-strapped smaller producers, encouraging currently lacklustre capital spending and increasing the major producers to take over 120,000bl/d of crude-by-rail contracts signed by the previous government. Programme extension "Extending curtailment is far from ideal, but it remains necessary," says Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage. "Thanks to [federal prime
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