The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday, Sept. 4, edition that Syncrude expects to return to normal operations toward the end of September, confirming market talk of an extended outage after last weekend's fire. A Reuters dispatch to The Globe reports that Syncrude's majority owner Canadian Oil Sands ($6.46) says the venture will operate with "minimal synthetic crude oil shipments and operating rates" for the next two weeks as part of a phased recovery. The disruption means that Syncrude output this year will be "near the low end" of the current projected range of 96 million to 107 million barrels. Canadian Oil Sands says the fire had damaged "pipes, power and communication lines on a pipe rack between a hydrotreating unit and its associated amine unit," but did not damage mining and extraction operations or other major upgrading units. The operating rates of undamaged units have been "safely reduced in a controlled and stable manner." Cash prices of Canada's synthetic crude jumped on Wednesday, swinging to a premium against American crude on the growing fears of a prolonged outage after the fire at the facility's Mildred Lake upgrader on Saturday.