By Amanda Stephenson
CALGARY (Reuters) -Wildfires burning in Canada’s oil-producing province of Alberta have affected more than 344,000 barrels per day of oil sands production, or about 7% of the country’s overall crude oil output, according to Reuters calculations.
At least two thermal oil sands operators south of the industry hub of Fort McMurray evacuated workers from their sites over the weekend and shut production as a precaution.
Canadian Natural Resources said it evacuated workers from its Jackfish 1 location and shut in approximately 36,500 bpd of bitumen production.
Cenovus Energy said it evacuated non-essential personnel from its Christina Lake oil sands site, and shut in approximately 238,000 bpd of production.
The company said on Sunday it is not aware of any damage to its infrastructure and anticipates a full restart of its Christina Lake operations in the near term.
MEG Energy said on Friday it had evacuated workers from its Christina Lake site. While production at the site continues, the company said on Saturday that the fires caused a power outage that is delaying startup of its Phase 2B operations, which represent approximately 70,000 barrels per day of production.
Wildfires have also affected some of Alberta’s conventional oil-and-gas production. A blaze burning near the town of Swan Hills in the northern part of the province forced Aspenleaf Energy to shut in about 4,000 bpd of production last week.
Canada produces about 4.9 million barrels of oil per day.
Alberta has 49 active fires and there are 24 active fires in Manitoba and 16 in Saskatchewan, according to provincial data.
In parts of Minnesota and North Dakota, air quality reached unhealthy levels on Monday, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow page. In 2023, Canadian wildfires blanketed much of the U.S. East Coast in smoke, forcing millions of Americans to stay indoors.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said on Monday that some 400,000 hectares (988,422 acres) have now burned in the province, up from about 9,000 as of last week.
She said nearly 5,000 people have been evacuated, adding that the government is restarting its emergency management cabinet committee out of concerns the situation in the province is worsening.
“We’ve got to be able to respond in a way that is going to be rapid,” Smith told reporters in Saskatoon.
The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre says that as of June 1, a total of 1.4 million hectares have burned so far across Canada. Last week, Manitoba urged 17,000 people to evacuate due to fires in the province’s remote north.
Wildfires have hit oil and gas production in Canada several times in the past decade.
Last year, Suncor Energy, Canada’s second-largest oil sands producer, temporarily curtailed production at its Firebag complex due to a nearby blaze.
In May of 2023, companies shut in at least 319,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, or 3.7% of Canada’s total production, as more than 100 wildfires burned in Alberta.
In 2016, thousands of oil sands workers were evacuated as a monster wildfire destroyed part of the community of Fort McMurray, forcing companies to reduce their oil output by a million barrels per day.
(Reporting by Amanda Stephenson in Calgary; Additional reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Bill Berkrot)
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