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An Anonymous Coward writes:

Royal Dutch Shell announced its third-quarter earnings of $1.8 billion. The figure includes $2 billion in losses because of the company's decision, announced at the same time, to stop construction of its Carmon Creek tar sands plant, near the town of Peace River, Alberta [wikipedia.org]. It cited inadequate pipeline capacity as the reason for the stoppage. The facility was designed to extract 80,000 barrels of oil per day. The company is retaining its lease and hence the ability to resume construction. The company also announced a $2.6 billion write-off resulting from its activities, now ended, off the Alaskan coast (earlier story [soylentnews.org]).

coverage:

• Shell Web site [shell.com]
• Washington Post [washingtonpost.com]
• CBC [www.cbc.ca]
• Wall Street Journal [wsj.com]
• The Guardian [theguardian.com]
• Washington Examiner [washingtonexaminer.com]

The announcement comes shortly after the release of a white paper, "Lockdown: the End of Growth in the Tar Sands" [priceofoil.org], by Oil Change International, a group critical of the oil industry. However, the Conference Board of Canada recently predicted (summary [conferenceboard.ca]) that "Canadian crude oil production is expected to expand significantly over the medium term."

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