Canadian oil sands, selling off its assets to Athabasca Oil Corp. and taking a loss of at least $500 million. The move ends Statoil’s nearly decadelong foray into oil sands production and comes two years after the company canceled plans to develop a major oil sands project, citing concerns about profitability. It signals the challenges faced by Canada’s oil sands, which are some of the world’s highest-cost and most greenhouse gas intensive sources of crude oil. “This transaction corresponds with Statoil’s strategy of portfolio optimization to enhance financial flexibility and focus capital on core activities globally,” Lars Christian Bacher, the company’s executive vice president for international development and production, said in a statement. Even with a recent uptick […]