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“If these protests continue to block up ports, this isn’t just going to disrupt the flow of energy, it’s going to disrupt everything – grain, potash, chlorine, you name it,” Pourbaix told the Financial Post on Wednesday. The company told investors at its first-quarter earnings that it had shipped an average of 106,000 barrels of oil per day on railway cars at the end of 2019.

“I think it’s really incumbent on the various levels of government to get together to find a solution because it’s going to really gum up the Canadian economy if (the protests) are allowed to continue for any length of time,” he said.

Pourbaix said the company had the option to ship even more oil on rail and moved 120,000 bpd on trains in January. The company has been steadily ramping up its shipments by rail, which has allowed the company to get allowances to surpass the Alberta government’s mandatory production limits.

“In a world where we aren’t able to move oil by rail, that would eventually affect our ability to utilize (government credits) to maximize our production,” Pourbaix said. “We haven’t seen a significant impact on our rail movements yet.”

Still, the risk of a fall in oil-by-rail shipments to Alberta’s economy is significant.

Total oil shipments by rail out of Canada reached 297,000 bpd in November, the last data available from the Canadian Energy Regulator.

We’re going to be cautious and we’re going to keep the rail program available Alex Pourbaix, CEO, Cenovus Energy

National Bank Financial analyst Travis Wood said in a research note Wednesday that total crude by rail movements out of Canada have now reached 345,000 bpd and “continues to play a meaningful role in the (Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin) egress strategy.”