Alberta producers restart oil and gas operations as wildfires ease

Veren

10/05/2023 19:36

By Nia Williams
       May 10 (Reuters) - 
    A number of oil and gas companies in Canada's main
crude-producing province Alberta restarted shuttered production
on Wednesday as wildfires that had sparked widespread
evacuations eased.
  
    Producers shut in at least 319,000 barrels of oil equivalent
per day (boepd), or 3.7% of the country's production, earlier
this week as more than 100 fires ignited across Alberta, forcing
nearly 30,000 people to flee their homes.
    By Wednesday a couple of days of cooler weather in southern
and central Alberta allowed firefighters to make progress in
tackling the blazes, and for some oil and gas facilities to
resume operations.
    Crescent Point Energy  CPG.TO  shut in 45,000 boepd in the
Kaybob Duvernay region in response to the wildfires but said it
has since restored approximately 75% of that production with no
damage reported to its assets.
    The company "plans to fully restore the remaining production
once it is safe to do so", Crescent Point said in a news
release.
    Tourmaline Oil Corp  TOU.TO  said seven of its nine
facilities that were shut in because of wildfires have resumed
operations and are back to previous production rates.
    Its two remaining facilities, representing about 16,000
boepd of production, are undamaged and waiting for clearance to
restart from the Alberta government.
    "The company expects the start-up of these two facilities to
commence in the next several days," Tourmaline said. 
    Canadian gas exports, which dipped earlier in the week, were
on track to rise to 8.0 billion cubic feet per day on Wednesday,
the most since May 4. That compares with average exports of
about 8.5 bcfd since the start of the year.
    
 

 (Reporting by Nia Williams in British Columbia, Sourasis Bose
in Bengaluru and Scott DiSavino in New York; editing by Diane
Craft)
 ((nia.williams@thomsonreuters.com; +1 403 531 1624; Reuters
Messaging: nia.williams.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))