When Alberta’s previous government, led by Rachel Notley, instituted obligatory oil production cuts to arrest a serious discount in prices to WTI, some in the industry weren’t happy. Others, however, welcomed the move that aimed to alleviate the glut that had caused the vast discount, itself the result of insufficient pipeline capacity. Now, the cuts are paying off enough to make oil-by-rail lucrative again. Bloomberg’s Robert Tuttle wrote this week that the excess supply of oil in Alberta had shrunk, according to data from Genscape, and shipments by rail were rising. Oil-by-rail was the only alternative for Canadian producers when the pipeline shortage became acute enough for everyone to notice. Yet it wasn’t an alternative of choice—oil-by-rail is more expensive for producers. The Notley government lent a hand and bought 4,400 new rail cars to boost this takeaway capacity by 120,000 bpd. Yet at the time there were warnings […]