Shell halts 80,000 b/d Carmon Creek in situ oil sands project

On 27 October 2015, Shell announced it will halt construction of the 80,000 b/d Carmon Creek in situ oil sands project. The announcement comes several months after Shell initially delayed the project by two years in May 2015, citing low oil prices and a desire to re-tender contracts and lower costs as the reasoning. Early construction work and capital spend at Phase 1 had been initiated after corporate sanctioning in October 2013. With multi-year lead times, the impacts of oil sands project delays and cancellations today are felt five to six years later, doing little to ease the current global supply glut. Oil sands production is not as nimble and fast acting to oil prices as tight oil. Oil sands, together with other large global resource plays are an important element in our future global supply forecast and we believe these volumes are needed to balance the global supply-demand equation in the years to come.