Forest fires in northern Alberta that have forced the shut down of more than a 1mn b/d of crude production, are moving away from the heartland of Canada's oil sands industry as cooler weather and light rain helped contain what could be the worst blaze in Canada's history.
Heavy smoke and the threat of the massive fire, burning since 3 May, prompted Syncrude Canada to totally shut down its 350,000 b/d oil sands mines and 3 cokers on 7 May for the first time in almost 50 years. The world's largest oil sands producer said smoke had reached its Mildred Lake site, 40km north of Fort McMurray but the Aurora and Mildred Lake sites had not been damaged.
Husky Energy also completely shut down its 60,000 b/d capacity Sunrise oil sands thermal operation on 7 May. The integrated producer had cut production to 10,000 b/d from 30,000 earlier last week because of the fires.
The blaze was expected to more than double in size from the 1,000km² reported on 6 May, but only grew to about 1,650km², Alberta premier Rachel Notley said yesterday. Nicknamed "The Beast," the raging fire destroyed most of the town of Fort McMurray last week, forcing almost 90,000 people to flee from the region, including some 25,000 who evacuated north to oil sands work camps for days before when the one highway south became passable.
Suncor Energy said late yesterday the fire had reached the southern end of the producer's oil sands mine but fire mitigation effort were successful and its plants were not damaged. The majority stakeholder of Syncrude shut down its two main oil sands operations, producing 235,000 b/d in the first quarter, on 6 May, citing pipeline outages reducing takeaway capacity and diluent supply.
Enbridge, Inter Pipeline and Pembina Pipelines evacuated workers, shut down storage terminals, and pipelines totaling almost 2mn b/d capacity last week. Canadian National Railway also stopped operating rail cars near Fort McMurray.
Provincial representatives said CNOOC subsidiary Nexen Canada's Long Lake thermal operation, about 45km southeast of Fort McMurray, appears to have suffered minor damage from the fire. The 72,000 b/d operation had been running at reduced capacity since a fatal explosion in January.
Royal Dutch shell, Statoil, Imperial Oil and Connacher Oil and Gas were among the oil sands producers that shut down or reduced output as they evacuated workers and dealt with pipeline and diluent constraints.
While Alberta agriculture and forestry officials said the fire could take months to fully extinguish, the cooler weather conditions and work by hundreds of firefights has helped them contain it. There were no estimates about when it would be safe for people to return to the city and the region, although Suncor said it was already working on getting back to operations.
"We have routinely brought down assets as part of planned maintenance and safely ramped them back up within days and we believe we can do so in these circumstances," Steven Williams, president and chief executive said Sunday.
Suncor said it was assessing critical infrastructure, like pipelines, to ensure the situation was safe for its workers to restart operations.
