Plans to bring back more than 1 million barrels a day of lost production in Canada’s oil sands are being delayed as wildfires sweeping across northern Alberta threaten operations again, prompting Suncor Energy Inc. to evacuate three sites it was restarting.
The nation’s largest oil producer flew employees from its MacKay River, Firebag and base plant sites as it shut down the facilities days after beginning the process of resuming output. The wildfire that’s raged for more than two weeks circled back north of Fort McMurray toward the main operations in the oil sands, the world’s third-largest reserves.
About 8,000 workers were removed from lodging facilities as the blaze grew to about 1,370 square miles, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said Tuesday. That’s an area bigger than Rhode Island. Horizon North Logistics Inc.’s Blacksand lodge, a work camp about 24 miles northwest of Fort McMurray that serves Suncor and Syncrude Canada Ltd., two of the largest oil-sands facilities, was destroyed by fire, Notley said.
“Mother Nature continues to be our foe in this regard and not our friend,” Notley said in a briefing. Westerly winds were forecast to push the fire closer to Suncor and Syncrude oil-sands plants, though both facilities are very resilient, she said. “We expect fire growth in the area of many of these camps.”
The renewed threat to oil-sands production helped push crude to a seven-month high on Tuesday. West Texas Intermediate gained as much as $0.27 to $48.58 a barrel Wednesday in New York.
The delay to restarts is another setback for Canada’s economy and energy industry in what is already estimated to be the country’s costliest disaster. The fires forced the evacuation of more than 80,000 people from their homes earlier this month as entire neighborhoods in Fort McMurray were razed. Oil-sands output has been reduced by about 1.2 million barrels a day, according to the Conference Board of Canada. The research group forecasts that 14 days of production cuts represents a hit of about $763 million to the Alberta economy.
Suncor is focused on moving people out of the oil-sands region, Sneh Seetal, a spokeswoman, said by phone. The MacKay River, Firebag and base plant mine sites together have a capacity to produce about 740,000 barrels a day. Syncrude, a joint venture controlled by Suncor, also evacuated workers because of the fire threat, Will Gibson, a spokesman, said in an email. Syncrude’s Mildred Lake and Aurora mines together have a capacity to produce about 407,000 barrels a day.
Rainfall may help slow the fires, Travis Fairweather, an Alberta Forestry spokesman, said by phone late Tuesday. Rain is expected to begin Thursday and continue through Sunday, according to government of Canada weather forecasts. There were 1,754 firefighters, 208 helicopters, 412 pieces of heavy equipment and 29 air tankers currently battling fires across Alberta, including the blaze around Fort McMurray, the provincial government said.
The reduced production will cut Alberta’s gross domestic product by about 0.33 percent this year and erode Canada’s GDP by 0.06 percent, the Conference Board said in a statement Tuesday. The rebuilding effort to replace the 2,400 homes and buildings in Fort McMurray destroyed by the fires will add about C$1.3 billion to the economy next year.
“The shutdown of activity in Fort McMurray and in the oil sands will have a major impact on the local economy in the short term,” the Ottawa-based group said.
Oil-sands production came offline as companies took precautionary measures including evacuating workers and shutting down power lines and pipelines. Companies are taking similar measures again. Inter Pipeline Ltd. said Tuesday it had partially shut down its Polaris and Corridor systems due to fires.
The fires came within a kilometer of Enbridge’s Cheecham oil terminal, where crude is stored and shipped from the Athabasca region about 75 kilometers southeast of Fort McMurray. Enbridge sought to widen an existing firebreak around the terminal and spray down the facilities, said Graham White, a company spokesman. Some pipelines in and out of the terminal were operating.
Other work camps are threatened by the fire, in addition to the Horizon North facility that was destroyed, officials said. Highway 63, the main road in and out of Fort McMurray that has been closed for periods during the fire, is very likely threatened and may close again, Notley said.
Horizon’s Blacksand lodge, a 665-room facility, was safely evacuated and the company assumes it was lost, Rod Graham, the company’s chief executive officer, said in a phone interview.
“If the workers are being evacuated, it would delay getting back to full capacity” in the oil sands, Graham said. “This fire is unpredictable and volatile.”
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