CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – Canada’s biggest railroad says it is attracting interest from oil producers in its effort to move crude in solid, puck-like form, as clogged pipelines divert more oil to riskier rail transport. A CanaPux crude oil solid pellet is shown in this Canadian National Railway Company (CN) image released from Montreal, Quebec, Canada on November 7, 2018. Courtesy CN/Handout via REUTERS Congested pipelines have stranded much of Canada’s crude in Alberta, driving discounts to record-high levels. Canadian heavy crude traded on Friday for less than one-third of the U.S. benchmark light oil price. The latest blow to the sector landed on Thursday, when a U.S. court ruled construction must stop on TransCanada Corp’s Keystone XL pipeline. Pipeline pressure has pushed more crude onto trains owned by Canadian National Railway Co and smaller rival Canadian Pacific Railway Limited. But crude movement by rail is costly and prone to spills and sometimes disastrous accidents, such as the 2013 derailment at Lac Megantic, Quebec that killed dozens of people. Enter CN’s patented Canapux product, which is solidified crude encased in plastic, named to evoke the country’s most popular sport, hockey. The railroad argues that solid crude, never before commercially […]
