Instead, John Abbott, executive vice-president for heavy oil, told reporters Friday morning the Canadian arm of giant Royal Dutch Shell plans a three-phase program to boost output from existing oilsands mining and upgrader facilities by 85,000 bpd.
“We have decided to withdraw the application for our new upgrading facility,” Abbott said in Calgary. “That was a proposed 100 per cent Shell equity, 400,000-bpd facility which could have been constructed adjacent to our existing facilities in Fort Saskatchewan (northeast of Edmonton).
“But I remind you Shell has existing licences for 290,000 bpd of bitumen upgrading capacity already at the Scotford upgrader and we already have approval for 400,000 bpd of what we call bitumen-blending facilities.”