Canada: Oil-sands project hits massive cost overrun

COST Overruns in the Alberta oil sands have become every bit as overwhelming as the 175bn barrel resource the operators are trying to exploit. But they are nothing on the scale of Syncrude Canada's disclosure that its stage-3 expansion will cost almost double the original budget. The consortium that runs the world's largest synthetic crude producer, at 253,000 barrels a day (b/d), says its 100,000 b/d expansion will now cost C$7.8bn ($5.8bn) and could rise to C$8.1bn before it comes on stream in mid-2006, one year behind schedule and C$4bn over the 2001 estimate. That represents the biggest overrun in the 35-year history of the oil sands, far exceeding the 50% cost inflation experienced by S