A fire at the Shell Scotford site in Fort Saskatchewan that lasted three hours could have been much worse, the company says.
According to Shell, company crews were called to the fire around 8:45 a.m., along with Strathcona County and Fort Saskatchewan Emergency Services.
“We got a call that there was a fire. Our emergency responders responded to the fire,” explained Shell Canada’s Stephen Veltiuzhen.
“We also sounded our site assembly alarm just to make sure we kept people safe and out of harm’s way.”
Road blocks were set up at the site’s entrances, as well as on Township Road 560A at Range Road 214 and Range Road 220 at Township Road 554.
They remained up until noon, when the fire was declared out.
For the remainder of the afternoon, one stack that had been engulfed in flames continued to emit a cloud over the upgrader facility and surrounding area.
“When we have an incident like this, our first priority is to keep people safe. Everybody followed our emergency response procedures, and thankfully we had no injuries and everyone’s accounted for,” Veltiuzhen said.
Shell is unsure how the incident will affect the Scotford operations.
A GasBuddy senior petroleum analyst wondered if the fire could impact consumers.
“I will watch it a little closer for what it could mean for prices here, and that would be if the upgrader is badly damaged and there can’t be the regular processing of oil,” Dan McTeague told CTV Two.
The complex consists of a bitumen upgrader, oil refinery, chemical plant and a carbon capture and storage facility.
Alberta Occupational Health and Safety will be investigating the fire.
With files from David Ewasuk
