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The last place oil producers want to be when prices plummet to profit-demolishing lows is midstream on a billion-dollar project in one of the costliest parts of the planet to extract crude.

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Thousands of new barrels of oilsands production flowing into the North American oil market could exacerbate the discount Canadian producers get for their crude, analysts say.

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Yet that’s exactly where half a dozen oilsands operators from Suncor Energy Inc. to Brion Energy Corp. find themselves with prices for Canadian oil now hovering around US$30 a barrel. While all around them projects have been postponed or cancelled, their investments were judged too far along when the oil game suddenly moved from offence to defence.

These projects will add at least another 500,000 barrels a day — roughly a 25 per cent increase from Alberta — to an oversupplied North American market by 2017. For companies stuck spending billions in a downturn, the time required to earn back their investments will lengthen considerably, said Rafi Tahmazian, senior portfolio manager at Canoe Financial LP.