- The Syncrude oil sands project could be offline longer than expected, potentially until the end of August, providing a boost for Canadian crude oil prices, according to analysts at Haywood Securities.
- “Based on our ‘boots on the ground’ contacts, we believe the timeline to ramp back to full capacity is now likely September, which would add continued support (and potentially upside) to current oil prices," says Haywood analyst Darrell Bishop.
- “An extended outage would help to free up more pipeline space for other producers to backfill and support drawing down some of the record western Canadian inventories, which have been building" since H2 2017, Bishop writes.
- Majority owner Suncor Energy (SU -0.3%) said earlier this week that Syncrude is commissioning its steam systems, an important step toward restarting, but provided no update on the timing of restarting production.
- The facility, which can produce as much as 360K bbl/day of crude oil, was hit by a power outage last month and has been expected to remain offline through July.
- Now read: Abraxas Petroleum: Steady As She Goes
Original article