Royal Dutch Shell is slowing its expansion into high-cost Canadian tar sands, Chief Executive Peter Voser said in Monday's edition of the Financial Times.

In an interview with the paper, Voser said Shell had scaled down plans to increase tar sands production to 700,000 barrels per day.

Over the past two years and certainly over the past six to eight months, I've taken the pace out of that because we have enough other growth opportunities, he said. Instead, Shell planned to rely more on conventional oil and gas reserves for future growth, he said, adding that Shell had become better at finding new oil and gas reserves after investing heavily in exploration.

Many oil sands developments were canceled in the latter half of 2008 as crude prices tumbled from record highs.

Environmental groups have also waged campaigns on oil sands projects, protesting about their impact on air, land, water and communities.

(Reporting by Victoria Bryan; Editing by Diane Craft)

Energy