Oil prices force cutback at Petroteq Vernal oil sands extraction facility

Petroteq Energy Inc. has reduced its production staff and reduced operations at its Asphalt Ridge soil remediation and heavy oil extraction processing facility near Vernal to one shift. The move comes in response to the precipitous drop in oil prices worldwide due to market conditions.

“Because of the effects of the recent decline in oil pricing, the company is no longer operating (in terms of the cost to produce and sell oil) on a breakeven basis,” Petroteq said in a release. “However, production costs are also expected to decline as a result of an anticipated decline in solvent cost used in production of Petroteq’s oil.”

Petroteq management said it feels it is important to keep the plant operating to continue production “especially to demonstrate operations to the multiple parties currently completing due diligence on Petroteq as part of the technology licensing process.” Petroteq has scaled back to a skeleton crew and intends to store production in anticipation of selling product into a rebounding market in the future.