About a decade ago, a Shanghai-based real-estate mogul began amassing 100,000 acres in southeastern Saskatchewan near the North Dakota border. Chinese billionaire Ni Zhaoxing, shown in London last October. Zhongrong Group/Bloomberg News Few people expected it at the time, but the surrounding Bakken Shale formation was on the cusp of revolutionizing North America’s energy industry, creating oil giants of onetime small companies. But Ni Zhaoxing’s operation—a rare, early foray by Chinese private equity into the North American energy sector—has little output to show for its bet, the amount of which it hasn’t disclosed. Mr. Ni in 2007 targeted production of 20,000 barrels of oil a day within Canada Capital Energy Corp.’s first five years of business. Yet the company pumped 567 barrels of oil a day last year, according to the Saskatchewan government, and has forecast production in the mid-thousands of barrels of oil and natural-gas liquids by […]