Wildfire forces evacuation of workers from oil sands complexes

May 18, 2016

Approximately 8,000 workers were evacuated from Suncor and Syncrude oil sands facilities as forest fires in Northern Alberta spread to the edges of the complexes.

Fires have ravaged the area for more than two weeks, forced 80,000 people from their homes in Fort McMurray and reduced Canadian oil production by at least one million barrels of oil a day, or about 40 percent of the country’s total oil-sands output. The latest flare up has forced some oil sands operators to abandon plans laid last week to restart production.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the production disruption has contributed to a recent rise in oil prices. On Tuesday, light, sweet crude for June delivery settled up 59 cents, or 1.2%, at $48.31 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest settlement since Oct. 9.
There was hope that more favorable weather conditions would help firefighters get a handle on the massive five.

“The oil sands facilities still, at this point, have had the fire burn up around some edges, but it’s something that’s held there,” Chad Morrison, the Alberta forest ministry’s chief wildfire official, said in a teleconferenced town hall with Fort McMurray evacuees. “In the coming days, we expect the weather to improve and [that] we’ll continue to have more success with our firefighting,” he said.

Suncor has closed down production of 300,000 barrels of oil a day at two mines and a pair of oil-sands well sites, and its Syncrude unit has shut its 350,000-barrel-a-day-capacity mines. The Suncor and Syncrude facilities nearest to the fires are about 4 miles from one another, separated by a barren stretch of reclaimed land and man-made ponds filled with waste materials from the mines.

Syncrude has evacuated all but about 100 staff needed “to maintain the safety and stability” of operations at its Aurora and Mildred Lake mines, a company spokesman said. It has plans in place to evacuate those remaining workers if needed, he said.

Suncor said it was relocating nonessential workers in the area to camps farther north that aren’t part of the evacuation order.

Representatives for both operations expressed confidence their production facilities faced little direct threat from the fires. Key equipment such as upgraders that partially refine crude oil is located hundreds of yards from any flammable vegetation and is protected by sprinkler systems and firefighting equipment such as bulldozers, firetrucks and water pumps, they said.

While not damaged, these and other oil sands sites have been affected by staffing issues stemming from the evacuation of Fort McMurray’s residents and logistics issues preventing them from shipping heavy crude. Pipeline operator Enbridge Inc. has reduced its oil-sands crude shipments by about 900,000 barrels a day, down from a capacity of 1.5 million barrels a day.

The forest fire around these mines and other oil sands sites grew to more than 877,000 acres, or nearly 1,370 square miles, up from 704,250 acres on May 17, according to the province.

The government said the fire posed a renewed threat to neighborhoods in northwestern Fort McMurray, which has lost some 2,400 houses and other buildings since the fire was first detected on May 1. The cause remains under investigation. 

 

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