Conoco has big plans for oil sands

ConocoPhillips Co. is prepared to spend billions of dollars on pipelines and refinery upgrades to allow it to process oil sands crude throughout its refinery network stretching to the U.S. Gulf Coast, company chairman Jim Mulva said Thursday.

The extension of the pipeline network into the Gulf Coast would open a vast new market for Canadian oil sands producers and help ensure that oil sands projects that have already been proposed could go ahead.