RE: Sales by rail Shipping bitumen by rail is a good diversification for CLL. No question about this.
Unfortunately regardless of the shipping method (pipeline, tracking or rail) CLL is selling their bitumen at $12 to $15 below their Total cost. CLL's main problem is low and dramatically declining production level.
This is all related to low quality bitumen reservoir. Despite hundreds of millions of additional capital expenditures in last few years at POD1 and Algar (new well-pairs, high pressure pumps, additional steam from Co-generator, etc...) production dropped from ~16,000bbl/d to ~11,000 bbl/d. To brake even they need to sell ~17,000 bbl/d . SAGD+ due to the recovery of expensive solvent has not been commercially and economically viable option.
For last 2 or 3 years CLL survived by selling out their most productive assets to cove the losses. The game is over. There is no more assets for sale except unprofitable bitumen production at POD1 and Algar.