Oilsands companies evacuate workers, reduce production due to northern Alberta wildfires

Some oilsands producers are removing workers and shutting production from their sites as wildfires rage in northeastern Alberta.

Cenovus Energy Inc. said Sunday it began the work to shut in production at Christina Lake on May 29. The heavy oil operation is about 150 kilometres southeast of Fort McMurray. It began shutting down production from the steam-driven project on Thursday and about 238,000 barrels of oil a day are now offline.

A fire nearby has put the roughly 200 residents of the hamlet of Conklin under evacuation alert.  As of Monday, the fire — known as the Caribou Lake wildfire — continued to burn out of control and had consumed more than 61,550 hectares of forest.

The fire is among more than 50 burning across the province. As of 7 a.m. Monday, 26 are classified as out of control.

Based on its inspections so far, Cenovus says it is not aware of any damage to its infrastructure and expects a full restart of its Christina Lake operations once it is safe.

About 238,000 barrels per day of production have been impacted. It says it will provide an update when it's in a position to restart.

The company said operations will resume as soon as it's safe to do so. 

Meanwhile, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. said on Saturday that its Jackfish 1 site has been evacuated and that 36,500 barrels a day have been shut in.

"All workers are safe and accounted for with no reported injuries and have been relocated to other facilities in our thermal in situ operations," the company said in a notice on its website.

"Canadian Natural is working together with local authorities to ensure the safe and orderly movement of people through the area, including providing support for first responders and community members."

MEG Energy has only critical operating staff on site at its Christina Lake operations. The fires caused an outage to a utility's power line connected to the site, but it's able to keep running its production thanks to cogeneration capabilities.

The power outage has, however, delayed startup of a section of Christina Lake that had been down for maintenance.

"The safety of our people and protection of our assets remain our top priorities, and there is no immediate risk to either," said chief executive Darlene Gates in a news release Saturday.

"We are working closely with authorities and co-ordinating with our industry peers to support each other and resume normal operations."

The Alberta government says there are more than 50 active wildfires in the province, about half of which are out of control. So far, more than 480,000 hectares have burned.

The fire affecting the oilsands operators, dubbed the Caribou Lake fire, is estimated at 61,500 hectares and remains out of control as of Monday.

Thousands of residents have been affected by wildfires in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta prompted by hot, dry weather that have allowed some fires to grow.