- Wildfires in northern Alberta have spread farther into the oil sands area, prompting the shutdown of ~230K bbl/day of production and keeping ~10% of the province's output offline.
- Cenovus Energy (CVE -0.7%) said yesterday it evacuated workers from its Narrows Lake oil sands project and Birch Mountain natural gas plant because of the fires; Narrows Lake is not yet producing, and workers were finishing the camp project there when they were evacuated.
- CVE already had closed its 135K bbl/day Foster Creek operations and evacuated 1,700 workers, Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ -0.6%) has cut 18K bbl/day of output at its Kirby South oil sands operation and 80K bbl/day from its Primrose facility, MEG Energy (OTCPK:MEGEF) halted operations at its Christina Lake site, and Statoil (STO -0.3%) says its Leismer site remains in operation but it will evacuate non-essential staff.
- Economists warn that the fires could further cut Canada’s GDP, already hit by the collapse in oil prices; oil sands extraction directly accounts for 2% of GDP but total energy extraction and support activities account for 6% of GDP, Bank of America says.