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Repsol SA is looking as far away as Western Canada for oil for its European refineries amid dwindling supplies from Mexico and Venezuela.

The Spanish oil company is considering using rail to transport as much as half-a-million barrels of heavy crude a month 3,100 kilometres from Alberta to Montreal before loading it onto tankers bound for Europe, according to people familiar with the situation. The company has also considered shipping the crude to New Jersey for shipment to Europe.

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The European company has typically sourced heavy crude supplies from Latin America, particularly Mexico and Venezuela. But U.S. sanctions, as well as civil strife, have crippled Venezuela’s oil production, which has fallen to less than 700,000 barrels a day from more than 2 million four years ago. Mexico’s oil production has fallen for 14 straight years to 1.83 million barrels a day in 2018. That’s left Repsol looking for alternatives.