Alberta Wildfires Encroaching on Trans Mountain Pipeline

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Written by Daniel Graeber for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Wildfires racing across Alberta prompted officials to issue evacuation orders for parts of the province, including an area through which a major crude oil pipeline runs.

Officials governing the Jasper National Park and the town of Jasper called on residents to evacuate to major cities such as Calgary or Edmonton to escape wildfires in the area. Part of the Trans Mountain crude oil pipeline to the western coast of British Columbia runs through Jasper.

Click on the image at right for a map from Trans Mountain showing the portion of the pipeline route that runs through Jasper.

Flows began in May through the expansion of the crude oil pipeline, which helped Canada break out of North American deadlock via exports from British Columbia.

Approved in 2019, the expansion twinned the existing 714-mile pipeline that runs from Alberta. Nominal capacity on the system expanded from 300,000 barrels per day (BBL/d) to 880,000 BBL/d.

Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Oil & Gas Pipeline Project Database can click here for a list of related project reports.

Trans Mountain Corporation had no postings on the status of the pipeline, nor did it respond to an inquiry by press time.

Cenovus Energy Incorporated (NYSE:CVE) (Calgary, Alberta) had already called on non-essential staff to leave its Sunrise project, just outside of Fort McMurray, due to fires raging from the Firebag complex. Suncor Energy Incorporated (NYSE:SU) (Calgary, Alberta) had also closed down its 215,000 barrel-per-day Firebag oil sands operations.

Alberta's government expects crude oil production to increase 17% from 2022 levels by 2025 to average 569,600 BBL/d. Natural gas production is expected to increase from 11 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2022 to 12.1 Bcf/d by 2032.

Similar to last year, smoke from the wildfires in Alberta is reaching the northern parts of the United States, though there are few air-quality alerts related to the blazes in Canada.

Fires in 2016 prompted the largest evacuation in Canadian history when more than 1,300 square miles were scorched. Wildfires that year shut in about 1 million barrels of oil production per day.

Nearly 90,000 people were evacuated in 2016. The provincial government said there were around 17,500 evacuated as of late Tuesday.

Alberta's government said there are 170 active fires racing across the province, the largest of which is the Cattail Lake complex, which remains out of control after covering more than 460 square miles of land.

"Although lighting has caused more than half of wildfires burning today, the other half are caused by people," the provincial government said. "Albertans are urged to prevent any additional fire starts that will add to the already extreme wildfire situation."

Many fire bans are in place across the province. The wildfire danger is still considered extreme in the Fort McMurry area, near much of the provincial oil sands operations.

There could be some relief coming in the form of rain and cooler temperatures. High temperatures near the mid-70s Fahrenheit are expected for much of the week, with rain and thunderstorms expected through at least Sunday.

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