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11-010-XIB |
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Economic events in October CanadaEnCana and ConocoPhillips announced a $5.4 billion (US) partnership to increase production at EnCana’s Foster Creek and Christina Lake projects to 400,000 barrels of bitumen a day by 2015 and $5.3 billion (US) to increase the capacity of two Conoco facilities in the US to upgrade 275,000 barrels of bitumen a day. Husky Energy officially opened Tucker, its first oil sands project, which is expected to produce 30,000 barrels a day within the next two years. Royal Dutch offered $7.7 billion to buy the remaining 22% of Shell Canada it currently does not own. Irving announced it is conducting studies for building a $5 to $7 billion refinery in Saint John which would double its gasoline production to 600,000 barrels a day. Domtar announced the closure of three sawmills in Quebec and one in Ontario, eliminating 940 jobs. Other closures in Quebec included Abitibi-Consolidated; 4 sawmills and related operations (700 jobs), Cascades; 1 sawmill (200 jobs), and Tembec; 3 sawmills (435 jobs). Weyerhaeuser announced the closure of two mills in Saskatchewan affecting 300 employees. Restructuring costs led to a third-quarter loss of $5.8 billion for Ford, its largest in over 14 years. Ford plans to restate its earnings back to 2001 due to accounting errors involving derivatives. Honda will boost capacity of its top-selling cars by 60,000 a year in Canada and will put car production on a truck line in Alliston to meet demand. About 15,000 workers went on strike at 16 Goodyear Tire and Rubber plants in Canada and the US. A massive flood stopped construction at Cameco’s $660 million Cigar Lake uranium project in northern Saskatchewan. Brazilian-based Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD) officially acquired control of nickel-producer Inco. Ontario’s power authority approved seven projects ($800 million in investments) that will contribute 414 megawatts to the provincial grid by 2009. Bombardier won a $1.35 billion (US) order from Northwest Airlines for 36 jets and a $702 million (US) order from Italian “My Way” airlines for 19 aircraft. It announced cuts at its regional jet plant in Mirabel, while expanding its corporate jet output in Toronto. Saskatchewan lowered its provincial sales tax from 7% to 5% and created a statutory holiday in February. WorldOPEC agreed to curb oil output by 4.3% (1.2 million barrels per day), its first cut in over two years. The European Central Bank raised its key interest rate by a quarter point to 3.25%. |
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