Nia Williams News

The first tanker carrying crude from the expanded Trans Mountain pipeline is expected to load at the Port of Vancouver in the second half of May, the company building the project said on Tuesday.The expanded pipeline, which will carry an extra 600,000 barrels per day of oil from Alberta to Canada's Pacific coast, will begin transporting crude on May 1 with final line fill completed in early May, Trans Mountain Corp said in an email.(Reuters - Reporting by Nia Williams in British Columbia; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Nord Stream is seeking more than 400 million euros ($436 million) from its insurers over explosions in 2022 which ruptured pipelines designed to transport Russian gas to Germany, court filings show.Nord Stream AG names Lloyd's Insurance Company and Arch Insurance (EU) DAC as defendants in its lawsuit, which was filed at London's High Court last month.Switzerland-based Nord Stream confirmed in an email there is a contractual dispute in London commercial courts between itself and insurers of the pipeline system."However…

Dock workers at ports along Canada's Pacific coast rejected a tentative four-year wage deal agreed with their employers last week and returned to the picket line, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) said on Tuesday.The ILWU represents some 7,500 dock workers, who walked off the job on July 1 after failing to reach a new work contract with the British Columbia Maritime Employers Association (BCMEA), which represents the companies involved.In a statement released Tuesday afternoon…

U.S. and Canadian refiners have turned to North Sea "Forties" crude oil for the first time in seven years in the latest sign of changing global oil flows from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Nearly 2.6 million barrels of the crude are set to arrive at U.S. East Coast ports since February, according to Customs data on Refinitiv Eikon. Some of the oil is likely headed to Canada via pipeline. The light, low-sulfur Forties crudes are blended with others to replace Russian crudes that have been barred from the U.S. and Canada. Prior to the ban, about 50% of all crude from Russian ports that landed in the U.S. went to East Coast refineries, the customs data showed. The tanker Sea Turtle in February discharged 770,000 barrels of Forties and Forties blend crudes in Maine, destined for Suncor Energy.

Shell PLC's LNG Canada export project in British Columbia plans to start building its proposed second phase with natural gas-powered turbines and switch to electricity as more renewable power becomes available, a top executive said, a decision that means the expansion project will initially generate high greenhouse gas emissions.LNG Canada, in which Japan's Mitsubishi Corp owns a 15% stake, is set to be Canada's first liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal. The first phase…

A Canadian company has loaded a test cargo of solid bitumen onto a vessel destined for a refinery in China, the latest effort by the energy industry to avoid congested export pipelines and find new ways to export more oil sands crude.Calgary, Alberta-based Melius Energy loaded 130 barrels of neat bitumen, similar in consistency to a hockey puck, onto a 20-foot shipping container in Edmonton, Alberta, and transported it by rail to the Port of Prince Rupert in northern British Columbia.

The Hebron oil project off the coast of eastern Canada has produced its first oil, operator Exxon Mobil said on Tuesday, in a boost to Atlantic Canada's output after years of weak crude prices. At its peak Hebron will produce up to 150,000 barrels per day (bpd), Exxon said. It will help Atlantic Canada offshore production climb 44 percent to 307,000 bpd by 2024, according to estimates from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. The platform is located 200 miles (350 kilometres) off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador in depths of 300 feet (92 metres) and the oil field…

The Federal Court of Canada has ordered the seizure of a 721,915-barrel cargo of crude from Kurdistan aboard the "Neverland" oil tanker on the request of the Iraq Oil Ministry, court documents show. The Iraq Oil Ministry has also filed a claim against commodity trading house Vitol S.A. and subsidiaries including Mansel Ltd, the charterer of the ship, and affiliate Finaval SpA di Navigazione, the owner of the ship, for $32.5 million. Iraq claims the cargo was unlawfully misappropriated by the Kurdistan Regional Government and sold to Vitol to be loaded onto the "Neverland." Vitol declined to comment. The court action, dated June 29, is…

Woodfibre LNG, Canada's first liquefied natural gas export project, will be a "nice-to-have" fillip for the country's gas producers but does not signal the start of a west coast LNG boom, industry watchers said on Monday. Privately held Woodfibre LNG Ltd said on Friday it will start building its C$1.6 billion ($1.2 billion) project in Squamish, British Columbia, next year after its Singaporean parent company authorized the funds last week. It is the first of more than a dozen LNG projects proposed for British Columbia to get the final go-ahead, but analysts say Woodfibre is unlikely to herald an investment surge from other developers given the challenging economics of an oversupplied LNG market.

In a sign the massive Alberta wildfire is taking a toll on oil transport, Canadian crude exports to the United States dropped 12 percent last week, while another blend of Canadian sweet crude oil rallied as concerns grow about supply. Overall, trading in Canadian crude was quiet, as the second half of the month is generally inactive. Hot and dry weather and strong winds were expected to push the wildfire burning near Fort McMurray, Alberta eastward on Wednesday, continuing to threaten facilities and work camps in Canada's prized oil sands. With the fire projected to grow further, producers are starting to scramble for needed oil supply.

The Canadian province of Alberta, the biggest source of U.S. oil imports, announced the members of its climate change policy review panel on Friday, part of its pledge to implement new rules on greenhouse gas reductions. Environment Minister Shannon Phillips said the panel would offer recommendations to the government by early November, ahead of a key United Nations climate change conference in Paris in December, but did not say when new GHG targets are likely to come into effect. The five members of the panel are University of Alberta energy economist Andrew Leach, former Suncor Energy executive Gord Lambert, Enbridge Inc executive Linda Coady, Pembina Institute board member Stephanie Cairns and Angela Adams, a Metis Fort McMurray school district trustee.

Canadian oil storage and transport company Gibson Energy Inc said on Monday it is building 900,000 barrels of crude oil storage at its terminal in Hardisty, Alberta, after receiving sufficient support from shippers. The company will build a 500,000 barrel tank backed by a long-term contract with Teck Resources Ltd, a partner in the Fort Hills oil sands project and a new customer for Gibson Energy, and another 400,000 tank. The new storage is expected to be in service by mid-2017. RBC Capital Markets strategist Robert Kwan said against the backdrop of weak benchmark crude prices, Gibson Energy's ability to sign long-term contracts with customers to underpin of new storage should be viewed as a positive.

Nexen Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary of China's CNOOC Ltd, is closing its crude oil trading division following a round of job cuts announced last week, four market sources said on Monday. The Calgary-based company, which was acquired by state-controlled CNOOC in 2013 for $15.1 billion, cut 400 jobs last week in North America and the United Kingdom in response to plunging global oil prices. Three sources said Nexen was closing down its trading operations worldwide, although the majority of activity takes place in Calgary. The company will continue to market its own crude. Nexen did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In Canada, Nexen's crude oil desk is the biggest trading casualty so far of the global oil price rout, in which U.S.

President Barack Obama's sharpest criticism yet of Keystone XL this weekend included a controversial contention that the huge pipeline would be used to pump Canadian oil sands crude to global markets, not to U.S. refiners. TransCanada Corp., the pipeline giant that has been waiting six years for U.S. approval to build the $8 billion line, strongly denies it and says it is constructing the 1,179-mile (1,900-km) conduit only to serve import-dependant Gulf Coast refiners, weaning them away from supplies of heavy crude from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. The truth, experts say, lies somewhere in between. The 830,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) pipeline helping link Canada's oil sands to the Gulf Coast was conceived six years ago to supply U.S. customers. Since then, however, the U.S.

Canada's Quebec province could start exporting crude from oil sands and also liquefied natural gas to Asia and Europe from 2017-2018, as buyers search for alternative suppliers to Russia, Quebec's energy minister said. The standoff between Russia and the West over Ukraine has increased Europe's quest for alternative suppliers of oil and gas and Canada's exports to Europe have already started to pick up in the last few months. In September, oil sands giant Suncor exported its first-ever cargo of Western Canadian crude to Europe…

A tanker chartered by Canada's Suncor Energy Inc to ship oil sands crude from Quebec to the U.S. Gulf Coast was expected to receive replacement parts on Friday, enabling it to resume its journey, a Transport Canada spokeswoman said. The aframax tanker Genmar Daphne will be the second tanker of Western Canadian heavy crude that Suncor has shipped from the port of Sorel-Tracy on Quebec's St. Lawrence river. However, further shipments are unlikely in the current price environment, a market source said. Shrinking differentials between Western Canada Select heavy blend and U.S. crude futures mean netbacks - the price received by producers minus the cost of getting the product to market - have been severely squeezed. The Genmar Daphne has been anchored in the St.

Canada's largest oil and gas producer, Suncor Energy Inc, is shipping its first ever tanker of Western Canadian heavy crude from Canada's East Coast to Europe, a company spokeswoman said on Tuesday. Suncor spokeswoman Sneh Seetal confirmed Reuters shipping data that shows the aframax tanker Minerva Gloria was set to pick up a cargo of crude oil from the port of Sorel-Tracy on the St. Lawrence River in Quebec. Seetal declined to comment on where in Europe the crude cargo is going, citing commercial confidentiality. According to Reuters data it will be discharged in the Mediterranean. The crude was delivered by rail to a storage facility in Sorel-Tracy that is owned by Kildair Service Ltd.

The total cost of TransCanada Corp's controversial Keystone XL pipeline is likely to nearly double following six years of regulatory delays, a company spokesman said on Friday. TransCanada spokesman Shawn Howard confirmed comments made by chief executive officer Russ Girling during an interview in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. The comments were first reported by The Wall Street Journal. In an email, Howard said Girling had said the cost of the pipeline, previously estimated at $5.4 billion, had risen significantly. The CEO also indicated that the new estimate in the billions "gets you into the high single-digits to a 10 number," the spokesman wrote.

TransCanada Corp, Canada's No.2 pipeline company and the backer of the Keystone XL pipeline, reported a 14 percent rise in adjusted quarterly profit as an unusually harsh winter in North America boosted demand for its pipelines. Delivery volumes rose 24 percent in the company's Canadian Mainline gas pipeline system and 14 percent in the NGTL system in Western Canada in the first three months of the year. "An unseasonably cold winter resulted in strong demand for our critical pipeline and power infrastructure assets," Chief Executive Officer Russ Girling said in a statement. Girling said the recently completed Keystone Gulf Coast crude pipeline betweenCushing, Oklahoma, and the U.S.

Osum Oil Sands Corp, a private energy company chaired by former Suncor Energy Inc Chief Executive Rick George, agreed on Tuesday to buy Shell Canada's Orion oil sands project for C$325 million ($298.11 million). The Orion project in the Cold Lake region of northern Alberta is close to a number of other oil sands developments and has been producing bitumen since 2007 using steam-assisted extraction methods. In the first quarter of 2014 average production was 6,700 barrels per day from 22 well pairs, and the project is expected to be economically viable for more than 25 years. Osum also owns the nearby Taiga Project, which has secured regulatory approval to build and operate a 35,000-barrel-per-day facility.

Oil from a spill or oil well blowout in the Arctic waters of Canada's Beaufort Sea could easily become trapped in sea ice and potentially spread more than 1,000 kilometres to the west coast of Alaska, a World Wildlife Fund study showed on Friday. The WWF contracted RPS Applied Science Associates to model 22 different oil spill scenarios and map the spread of the oil, potential impact on the water and shoreline, and interaction with sea ice, wildlife and the surrounding ecology. Types of oil spills analyzed included shipping spills, shallow-water blowouts and deep-water blowouts. The BP Plc Macondo oil well rupture in 2010 that unleashed more than four million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico was a deep-water blowout.

Canadian Natural Resources Ltd said on Thursday its Tiffany production platform in the North Sea was expected to restart in mid-August after a shutdown. On a second-quarter earnings call, CNRL Chief Executive Officer Steve Laut said international production had decreased to 25,800 barrels per day in the quarter. That was mainly due to the production shutdown at Tiffany, which accounted for 4,500 bpd. (Reporting by Nia Williams; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Six years after applying to build the Keystone XL pipeline, Canada's frustrated oil industry appears steadfast in its support of the plan even though Washington has again delayed a decision on whether to approve the politically charged project. The reason is simple: A massive new pipeline to the U.S. Gulf Coast remains the most elegant solution for producers looking to export burgeoning supplies of crude from Canada's oil sands to the United States. TransCanada Corp's $5.4 billion pipeline would seamlessly pump enough crude from Alberta to Texas to meet 4 percent of total U.S. demand. "We're definitely supportive of the project," said Brad Bellows, a spokesman for MEG Energy Corp, which produces crude from Alberta's oil sands though it has not committed to ship on Keystone.