No injuries have been reported after an explosion early Saturday morning at Syncrude’s Mildred Lake facility, located about 50 kilometres north of Fort McMurray.
According to Alberta Energy Regulator spokeman Ryan Bartlett, along with no injuries, no product was released and no off-site odours occurred as a result of the blast that took place around 5:30 a.m. on August 29. In addition, he confirmed "no impacts to wildlife or water bodies" were reported.
Syncrude spokesperson, Will Gibson said the blaze was extinguished very quickly by the company’s fire department, although the extent of damage was not known at this time.
According to Gibson a “process incident” led to the fire. “We don’t want to speculate on what happened until we’ve investigated a cause – we know where the fire broke out and that’s where we’ll start our investigation.”
Gibson said access to the Mildred Lake complex was currently restricted to Syncrude employees to allow for “an efficient response to this incident” – part of which will be a thorough investigation. “We’re being very cautious because the safety of the people on our site is our top priority,” Gibson told CTV News.
It’s not known how many employees work in the area where the fire broke out, but officials said all workers at the site were accounted for.
According to Gibson, it’s too early to speculate on any impact to production. "The area where the fire broke out would be a place where workers would have left. But there are still parts of our plant where operations are ongoing...we've not evacuated our whole site."
The incident affected traffic along Highway 63 for a time Saturday morning.
With files from Dan Grummett
