Spotlight: Diesel shortage over for area dealers
Theresa Seraphim
for Spotlight
The recent shortage of diesel fuel appears to be over for dealers in the Slave Lake/High Prairie/Falher area.
“The supply of diesel is excellent now,” noted Louis Carriere, owner/manager of the High Prairie Shell station, adding the fuel came back on midstream in early December.
Girouxville Co-op general manager Roger Maure said the shortage was such that he was obliged to limit the amount of diesel each customer could get.
“I think everybody was in the same boat,” Maure noted.
The shortage came about because of a combination of a slowdown at Suncor’s Petro-Canada refinery in Edmonton and an explosion at a Regina refinery.
Rajiv Chadha of High Prairie Mohawk said that, except for one week, his station did not see a shortage of diesel, while Slave Lake Husky station manager Sarah Park noted there was a shortage but now “everything’s been sorted out.” Park said her station did not ration supplies, but hoped that there would be enough diesel delivered for everyone who needed it.
Suncor spokesperson Sneh Seetal said her company was advised in early October that a third party supplier of hydrogen was unable to supply it, thus lowering the amount of diesel available.
“Then we started to make arrangements … to meet customer demands,” Seetal noted.
“Our folks did everything they could to mitigate the effect to customers” by staying in constant contact with them to update them about the situation, she added.
Seetal stressed the situation was something “completely out of Suncor’s control.”
John Skowronski of the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute agreed, saying the hydrogen shortage and the explosion were “a couple of events that were basically unplanned events,” with the shortage being “the catalyst” for the situation.
While regular refinery maintenance can be, and is, planned for, events such as third-party shortages and explosions can’t be anticipated, he stressed.
Skowronski compared the matter to a car accident, saying even if you’re not injured, “it will disrupt part of your day.”
With three major refiners – Imperial, Shell and Suncor – serving Western Canada, if one goes down, there is a domino effect, Skowronski noted.
While some claim diesel fuel shortages go in cycles, that’s not necessarily true, he said, adding there are “always different issues. Sometimes they’re controllable and sometimes they’re not.”
Skowronski said refiners do their part by ensuring their facilities “are operating as safely and as up-to-date as possible.”
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