Thanks for the responses....

MarlboroDog - I agree that Crude Oil Futures is not the ideal price trend I should be following, but I can't seem to find a consistent datasource for WTI or bitumen prices I can chart. I assume bitumen and crude pices should be correlated somewhat, no?. Are you suggesting that the bitumen price trend appears more stable than the crude oil futures pricing from Nov/08 to present? I wasn't aware that regional pricing varied more than transportation costs.

Your observation of the timing of "ramping up" to certain "head fakes" of increased future pricing is what I also observe (it's just not what I would expect as being the decision driver to ramp up production.)

bbqdays - I also went back and tried to see when those hedges were in effect, and it appears they were mentioned before and after "ramp down" was announced - not quite sure at what prices and volume though (I recall 2500 barrels /day being locked in at $46). btw, I agree with your PDP claim, I haven't seen a $300M asset disappear as fast as PDP......

Could it have been worthwhile to go through the cost of "ramping down/up" for just 50-60 days? I'm sure bitumen pricing plays a large part with the decision, but there hasn't been a dramatic improvement in oil prices over this time period.