The depressed prices mean lower prices for refiners and less pump pain for North American drivers, but it's hardly good news for Canada's oil industry, which spent billions on
oilsands projects after world crude prices had risen high enough to justify the investment.
After all, prior to the Great Recession, Alberta's industrial heartland looked poised to become an upgrading mecca, with new refinery
projects expected to boost local production of
oilsands crude by more than half a million barrels a day.