Three Canadian Tar Sands Firms Borrowing Billions To Meet Higher Costs

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The largest borrowing was made made by Western Oil Sands Inc., which said it had closed a new $805-million, five-year revolving bank credit facility. "The debt will be used to finance our share of capital requirements for the first phase expansion of the Athabasca Oil Sands project and for general corporate purposes," said a Western statement. There was no word either on the spread or financing rate for the facility.

The project is a fully-integrated expansion of the existing Athabasca facilities in northern Alberta to add 100,000 barrels per day of production by 2010. The debt was arranged by RBC Capital Markets and replaces Western's existing $340-million revolving credit facility.

The announcement comes after Western CEOJim Houck reiterated that all options are being kept open to "maximize value" from the company, interpreted widely as putting itself up for sale.

And Opti Canada Inc. announced that it would stage a US$750-million bond issue as part of a financing plan to fund its term-loan facility and the Long Lake project at Athabasca. The firm also said that it has delayed by two months the commissioning and startup of its steam-assisted gravity drainage facilities for the oilsands project. However, it will not impact full production, due by early 2009.

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http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=86feb653-1d75-4382-9ca5-8686587433cc&k=86371

He said that it is terrible. The trucks rumble day and night, the dust, the noise etc is terrible. He raises Shelties and he says it takes extra cleaning to be sure they dogs are free of dust and dirt. Of course the country doesn't care about it's citizens, like this administration.....EH.

a lot oil industry people feel it`s to costly to develop and the end product is going to be very costly...

The OP is about tar sands in Alberta.

Have a :beer: on me! :hi: