Alberta eases oil curtailment quotas again

The Alberta government says it will again ease its crude oil curtailment program for September.

In a news release, it says it will allow the maximum amount to be produced by the province's senior oil companies to rise to 3.76 million barrels per day in recognition of lower oil storage levels and more volumes shipped by rail and pipeline.

That's an increase of 25,000 barrels per day over the August limit.

It'sabout 200,000 barrels per day higher than the initial quota allowed under the curtailment program when it began in January, under the previous NDP government.

The release makes no mention of a recent call by several producers to ease curtailments for companies that improve export market access from Alberta by adding crude-by-rail capacity.

Producers have indicated they would be more interested in buying 120,000 barrels per day of crude-by-rail contracts negotiated by the previous NDP government and put on the block by the current United Conservative government if they were allowed to produce more oil.

The first 10,000 barrels per day a company produces are exempt from production limits, meaning they affect only 29 of more than 300 producers in Alberta.