Alberta Oil Sands Factory Canada’s oil sands producers in the Fort McMurray region are watching the weather to determine if and when they can move the necessary people back to their operations to resume production and put some one million barrels per day (b/d) of bitumen back on line. Several operators are already moving personnel back to the region. Only a week ago it looked like oil sands operations north of the city had been spared. Then the fire changed direction requiring the evacuation of the same plants and camps in which displaced residents of Fort McMurray had sought refuge only a week earlier. The 5,000 square kilometer boreal forest wildfire, accurately named “the beast”, has a mind of its own. To put the size into perspective, greater Houston only covers 1,500 square kilometers. While hundreds of firefighters employing hundreds of millions of dollars of support equipment have proven […]