Factbox-Alberta wildfire shuts in at least 3.7% of Canada's energy production
(Reuters) - Canada's main oil-producing province Alberta on Saturday declared a provincial state of emergency due to wildfires, shutting in at least 319,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), or 3.7% of the country's production.
On Tuesday, Canada Energy Regulator (CER) said it was aware of some companies reducing operations across Alberta and would follow up with the impacted firms as needed.
Most CER-regulated pipelines are underground, putting them at lower risk from fires, the regulator said.
"The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) is monitoring wildfire developments as they unfold. Rapidly changing conditions make it very difficult to quantify the overall industry impact," Jay Averill, spokesperson for CAPP said in an emailed statement.
"In areas where the threat has lessened, some companies have been able to safely restart operations and bring production back online. It is too early to assess any estimated overall costs as the situation remains fluid," Averill said.
Canadian natural gas exports to the United States fell to 6.7 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) on Sunday, the lowest since April 2021, according to Refinitiv data.
Following are the energy companies whose operations have been impacted due to wildfires.
Cenovus Energy Inc
Cenovus said that production of about 85,000 boepd has been impacted in Cenovus' Rainbow Lake, Kaybob-Edson, Elmworth-Wapiti and Clearwater operating areas.
The company added that its 2023 production outlook remains unchanged.
Paramount Resources Ltd
Paramount said its operations in the Grande Prairie and Kaybob regions were impacted by the wildfires.
It added that about 50,000 boepd of production has been temporarily curtailed since the evening of May 5.
Crescent Point Energy Corp
Crescent Point said about 45,000 boepd of production in the Kaybob Duvernay region has been temporarily shut in with a plan to restart production once safe and permitted to do so.
The company added that no damage has been reported to its assets.
NuVista Energy Ltd
The company said it has temporarily shut in and depressured all operations proximal to the ongoing fires in the Grande Prairie region. The temporary production impact is about 40,000 boepd.
Canadian Natural Resources
The company said there is about 39,000 boepd of production temporarily shut-in and added that oil sands mining have not been impacted and continues with safe, steady operations.
Vermilion Energy Inc
Vermilion Energy said it had temporarily shut in about 30,000 boepd of production and that it was assessing the risk to its operations.
"Our assessment to date indicates minimal damage to our key infrastructure," it said.
Pipestone Energy Corp
Pipestone said its operations in the Grande Prairie area are being impacted by the ongoing wildfires and about 20,000 boepd of production has been temporarily curtailed since the evening of May 5.
The company said it is not aware of any significant damage or loss to its owned or third-party infrastructure.
Baytex Energy Corp
The company said due to the shut-in of third-party infrastructure in west-central and northwest Alberta, about 10,000 boepd of sales volumes have been curtailed since the evening of May 5.
Currently, about 60% of the curtailed volumes remain online and are producing into inventory, the company said.
Pembina Pipeline Corp
The Canadian energy transportation company said that its Saturn I and II gas plants at the Saturn Complex north of Hinton and the Duvernay Complex, west of Fox Creek, have been shut down.
The plants have a combined processing capacity of 443 million cubic feet per day and they would be restarted once it is safe to do, the company said.
Kiwetinohk Energy Corp
Kiwetinohk said it had safely shut in the majority of its Placid operations in response to downstream third-party interruptions that are in proximity to the Alberta wildfires.
Tourmaline Oil Corp
The company said it has evacuated and shut down nine South and West Deep Basin gas processing facilities. Tourmaline said it was not aware of any damage to those facilities to date, and access to the sites is currently prohibited.
Whitecap Resources Inc
The company said there was no significant damages to Whitecap's infrastructure, however, production has been impacted by downstream third-party interruptions and proactive shut-in of production in close proximity to the wildfires.
TC Energy Corp
The pipeline operator said as a result of the wildfires' paths and proximity, it has shutdown two compressor stations on its NOVA Gas Transmission Ltd (NGTL) system nearest to the active wildfires in western Alberta.
Late Sunday night, an additional compressor station on the system was shut down, TC added.
Peyto Exploration & Development Corp
The oil and gas producer said it had shut down two plants in the Brazeau area as a precautionary measure, but major infrastructure was not damaged by the fires.
(Reporting by Arunima Kumar and Sourasis Bose and Brijesh Patel in Bengaluru and Scott DiSavino in New York; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips, Shailesh Kuber, Devika Syamnath and David Gregorio)
