In Canada’s prairies, crude oil slump sees taps shut on active wells

Amid the corn and canola fields of eastern Saskatchewan, oil foreman Dwayne Roy is doing what Saudi Arabia and fellow Opec producers are loath to do: shutting the taps on active wells.

Inside a small wooden shed that houses a basic hydraulic pump, the Gear Energy employee demonstrates how shutting down a conventional heavy oil well in this lesser-known Canadian oil patch is as simple as flipping a switch. His company has already done so hundreds of times this year, making the Lloydminster industry among the first in the world to yield in a global battle for oil market share that has sent crude prices tumbling to six-year lows.

Gear Energy has idled up to 500 of its least efficient wells this year, many of them in the past weeks. Some cost up to C$28 (US$21.22) a barrel to operate. It costs another C$7 in royalty and transportation fees to get the crude, among the densest in the world, to regional rail hubs - where it was fetching barely US$20 a barrel during last month’s lows.

Roy said: “We ask every day: is this well making money today? Will it make us money going forward?”

Such questions have been nagging oil industry veterans since crude prices started sliding last year as a result of a supply glut caused by a battle between exporters’ group Opec and North American shale oil producers.

Energy firms around the world have responded by laying off thousands of workers and slashing spending by billions of dollars. But producers in Canada are the first to do what the global market needs to rebalance: turn off the taps.

All told, at least 8,000 barrels per day (bpd) of local heavy conventional oil production has been idled by firms such as Gear, Canadian Natural Resources (CNRL) and Baytex Energy this year.