When Alberta’s government announced obligatory oil production cuts last December, it was a desperate attempt to arrest a price slide of the local crude benchmark that had led to discounts of over US$50 a barrel compared to WTI . Now, the discount is less than US$10, and not everybody is happy about it. Albertan producers are already pressured by insufficient pipeline capacity as the Trans Mountain expansion projects gets bogged down in lawsuits and lack of investor interest, and as Line 3’s expansion was delayed for six months. Now, they are also feeling the pressure of costly oil-by-rail transport. Oil-by-rail has emerged as the only viable alternative to pipelines for local oil producers. In fact, last November the government of Canada’s oil province announced it was buying more oil trains. These have a total capacity of 120,000 bpd and will cost Alberta US$264 million (C$330 million). The trains should […]