Alberta suffers loss on crude-by-rail contracts

Canadian province reverses policy after financial burden begins to mount

The Alberta government has finally done away with crude-by-rail contracts signed by the previous government, as promised by premier Jason Kenney on the election trail last spring. But the province has had to accept a large financial loss to encourage private companies to take them on.  Alberta’s former leader Rachel Notley had claimed the contracts with Canadian National (CN) and Canadian Pacific (CP)—Canada’s two major railways—would make a substantial profit for the province when she had the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission (APMC) sign them in mid-February of last year. This was shortly before she called an election for mid-April and almost six months after a Canadian court quashed t