Hmmmmm

FORT McMURRAY, Alberta — At a camp for oil workers here, a collection of 16 three-story buildings that once housed 2,000 workers sits empty. A parking lot at a neighboring camp is now dotted with abandoned cars. With oil prices falling precipitously, capital-intensive projects rooted in the heavy crude mined from Alberta’s oil sands are losing money.

[...]

Despite a severe economic downturn in a region whose growth once seemed limitless, many energy companies have too much invested in the oil sands to slow down or turn off the taps. In addition to the continued operation of existing plants, construction persists on projects that began before the price fell, largely because billions of dollars have already been spent on them.

[...]

After an extraordinary boom that attracted many of the world’s largest energy companies and about $200 billion worth of investments to oil sands development over the last 15 years, the industry is in a state of financial stasis.

  NYT

Even Shell Oil abandoned its too-expensive Alaskan drilling.

I wonder where this puts the TransCanada pipeline project [AKA Keystone XL]. Just think how many [more] pitchforks might be aimed at the White House had Obama already pushed that through.

Federally, polls suggest that the [Canadian] Conservative party — which championed Keystone XL and repeatedly resisted calls for stricter greenhouse gas emission controls in the oil sands — is struggling to get re-elected in October.

This won't help them any, will it?

The developer of the Keystone XL pipeline is shifting course in Nebraska and will withdraw lawsuits seeking to gain access to the property of landowners who oppose the project, the company announced Tuesday.

TransCanada Inc., the developer, said it would abandon its efforts to invoke eminent domain through the courts and would reapply for state approval despite having received the go-ahead from former Gov. Dave Heineman in 2013.

  NYT

So sad.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.