(Adds price action, details of Syncrude outage)
CALGARY, Alberta, April 6 (Reuters) - ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) COP.N has cut output from its Surmont oil sands project by about 40 percent due to shortages of synthetic crude in northern Alberta, two market sources said on Thursday.
Surmont, a 140,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) capacity project that is a joint venture with Total E&P Canada TOTF.PA , mixes synthetic crude with tarry bitumen from its oil sands reservoir to create a heavy crude blend that can flow through pipelines.
Synthetic supplies are scarce following a fire at the 350,000-bpd Syncrude plant in March that damaged the facility and forced the operator to bring forward maintenance and cut production for all of April to zero. a joint venture majority-owned by Suncor Energy Inc SU.TO , is expected to return to operations the first week of May but will be running at reduced rates that month, trading sources said on Wednesday. McCullagh, a ConocoPhillips spokeswoman who earlier this week confirmed that the Syncrude outage affected Surmont output, declined to comment on the size of the production cut.
The oil sands outages boosted Canadian heavy crudes prices, with the benchmark Western Canada Select blend for May delivery last trading at a nearly two-year high of $9.50 a barrel, according to Shorcan Energy brokers.