Japan Petroleum Exploration is the latest foreign oil company to abandon Canada’s oil sands, as it decides against restarting a pilot project that was shut last year during the wildfires in Alberta.
Japex says it will exit the project due to low oil prices and technical risks of restarting the steam injection wells to allow the heavy oil to flow.
Meanwhile, the company’s nearby Hangingstone commercial project has achieved first oil production of ~1K bbl/day and expects to gradually ramp up to capacity of 20K bbl/day by H2 2018.
Japex owns 75% of both projects, while China’s Nexen Energy ($CEO) owns 25% of both.