Territory unaffected by western gasoline shortage
Drivers in Whitehorse can cruise easy, for now.
Drivers in Whitehorse can cruise easy, for now.
A gasoline shortage hit Petro-Canada stations across the western provinces today, but so far, it’s not affecting the Yukon.
An “unplanned outage” at a Suncor Energy refinery in Edmonton halted gasoline production today, affecting its retail brand, Petro-Canada.
This, compounded with interruptions caused by the Fort McMurray, Alta. wildfires, caused Petro-Canada pumps to dry up in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and parts of interior British Columbia.
Luckily, the Yukon stations are in the clear.
The Petro-Canada outlet on Fourth Avenue is operating as usual, said manager Sam Muhammud, who was aware of the service disruptions down south.
“We have no problems so far; everything is good for us,” he said.
There is also a Petro-Canada gas station located on the Alaska Highway at McCrae.
That facility is not selling gas right now because the pumps are being replaced, but counter attendant Darcy Homes said gas will be flowing there again in about three weeks.
Mary Cruz works at the Petro-Canada on the Alaska Highway in Fort Nelson, B.C.
Her boss told her Thursday that the nearby Petro-Canada bulk station is holding gas.
“They’re not giving us any gas anymore. I think they don’t have gas from Petro-Canada anymore,” she said.
Cruz, who sees drivers passing through on their way to and from Alaska, said her station isn’t running low just yet.
“Probably we’ll be good until Monday,” she said.
After deadline on Friday, Brian Kim, the manager of Fort Nelson Petro-Canada called to say he is getting gas shipped in from Dall contracting, a Petro-Canada bulk fuel provider.
The Edmonton Suncor refinery takes crude oil from the Fort McMurray oilsands and changes it into gas and diesel.
The wildfires forced Suncor to evacuate its base plant (the order was lifted on May 22), severely hampering Suncor crude production.
“Because of the fires in the Fort McMurray region, our oilsands operation were not able to produce the crude that refinery needed,” Suncor spokesperson Sneh Seetal told the Star this morning.
“What we’re seeing at the pumps is a result of the impact of the fires and the unplanned outage at our Edmonton refinery.”
It is unclear what exactly happened at the refinery to cause the outage, nor when the problem will be fixed.
“We are doing everything we can to improve the situation,” said Seetal
“We’re getting additional supply, we’re re-starting our oilsands operations, we’re getting additional gasoline from our own company’s supply and also from other companies, we’re going to bring that unit at Edmonton back into service as soon as possible, and we’re trying to maintain supply at critical locations.”
“Critical locations” refer to gas stations located in remote areas.
Suncor apologizes for the inconvenience, said Seetal.
Comments (5)
Up 1 Down 1
greengas on Jun 9, 2016 at 11:58 am
The oil companies who make trillions of dollars are crying 'poor boy!'
We were led to believe it was the Arabs behind the price of gas.
Now we know it's Canada, USA, and Russia and others.
Up 18 Down 2
andy odel on Jun 5, 2016 at 9:22 pm
Where is the author of this phony story getting their information, and are they really believing it!!!!! The day the announcement comes out the price goes up. Pretty obvious it's a supply and demand situation. One company says they have no fuel and the others rub their dirty little hands together and say "hey here's our chance to screw the customers once more". No other justification because the average price of the raw product "oil" has barely moved over the past week or so. If trudope wants to do something he should ensure that when petroleum prices go up there is justification for it. When the price goes up it costs everyone a whole lot more than just at the pump. This causes everything to go up. Have you noticed the increases in prices at Stupid Store over the last week? Hang on to your hat---it's going to get worse before it gets better. If that ever happens.
Up 22 Down 2
jc's back-up on Jun 5, 2016 at 5:23 am
The most recent gas hikes at the local pumps have us swallowing a 20% increase without warrant as the price of oil has not increased anywhere's near that. I'd agree with JC on this point.
Up 16 Down 0
Yukoner On The Road on Jun 4, 2016 at 8:31 pm
Just travelling through southern BC and noticing most Petro Can stations in places like Hope and Osoyoos don't have any gas. All the other gas stations such as Shell and Husky seem to be operating normally however but of course they jacked the price up a few cents.
Up 12 Down 43
jc on Jun 3, 2016 at 9:57 pm
But don't expect our high gas prices to go down anytime soon. Ten cents in one week? After all the money donated to those who work in the oil sands industry for their personal losses, this is the way they treat us. Good luck next time you get burned out. I can't wait until your oil business is replaced with renewable energy. The oil giants need to be put out of business. Maybe those fires were just a bit of karma to remind them of their greed.