TC Energy restarts Alberta compressor stations after wildfire-related shutdown

Holly McKenzie-Sutter, BNN Bloomberg

TC Energy has restarted compressor stations that were shut down this week due to wildfires in Alberta, and is ramping up other affected gas operations.

The company said Friday that employees and families who were evacuated from the Edson, Alta., area on June 9 are returning home. It said operations are now starting up again at the affected compressor stations on its NOVA Gas Transmission Ltd. (NGTL) System.

“As part of the return to the Edson area, we have been able to complete the safe and controlled restart of compressor units at all locations that were shut down due to wildfire precautions,” the company said in a written statement.

“Plans will be developed for a safe return to service of our gas storage facility over the coming days.”

The company said it is continuing to support wildfire response in the region and working with local authorities on the matter.

The 24,631-kilometre NOVA pipeline system connects most of western Canada’s natural gas to market, according to the company’s website.

TC Energy had previously shut down three compressor stations in May as a precaution due to the wildfires raging in Alberta.

Will wildfires have an impact on Canada's lumber industry?

Iva Poshnjari, BNN Bloomberg

Jun 14, 2023

Canada is battling numerous wildfires that are burning down a considerable amount of forests, which experts say will inevitably hurt the country’s lumber industry. 

Parts of Quebec and Alberta have been engulfed in wildfires that have caused evacuations and temporary shutdowns of natural resource infrastructure. Though the extent of the damage has not yet been determined, the impact will weigh on Canada’s lumber production, timber analyst John Duncanson of Corton Capital, told BNN Bloomberg in an interview on Wednesday.

“These fires are pretty serious. Forest area wise, we’re seeing the fires burn 15 times more than the 10-year average and we’re not even in fire season,” he said.

Duncanson added that lumber producers are powerless over these fires that put their resources at risk.

“The Canadian lumber industry is already suffering from a supply issue. Timber has been impacted by disease and manmade policies that already put pressure on available supply. These wildfires will only make this worse,” he added.

The producers are also unable to stock up supply as a future coping mechanism to wildfires as there are annual lumber cut limits in place, Duncanson explained.

He believes these pressures on supply will ultimately drive lumber prices higher.

One lumber producer operating mainly in Quebec said they’ve been forced to suspend operations amid the fires, which are the worst they’ve seen in decades, he told BNN Bloomberg.

“We’ve had to shut down sawmills in Quebec as some areas have been evacuated and our employees physically cannot be there to operate the machinery. It’s the worst I’ve seen in 30 years,” Louis Bouchard, director of public affairs and government relations at Resolute Forest Products, told BNN Bloomberg on Wednesday.

Quebec is the second-largest producer of lumber in Canada and responsible for 20.1 per cent of national softwood production. It follows British Columbia as the top provincial lumber producer.    

He agrees that the situation calls for political intervention when it comes to how Canadian forests are managed to help alleviate the issues.

“We need to change the way we manage, harvest and create biodiversity in our forests in order to help protect them from future forest fires,” he said.

Bouchard added that the government will also need to clear producers back into forest-burned areas as quickly as possible so they can recuperate any wood that may be salvaged.

Forest fires are just an addition to the already existing challenges that the lumber industry faces, one expert explained.

“Any sort of fire activity adds incremental strain on Canada’s lumber industry,” John Cooney, equity research analyst at ERA Forest Products Research, told BNN Bloomberg on Wednesday.

Wildfires, among other factors, will result in a continued downsizing of the industry, he added.

“Unfortunately, we’re looking at death by a thousand paper cuts for the lumber sector,” Cooney said.

Wildfires force some forestry companies to pause operations: Industry association

Rosa Saba, The Canadian Press

Jun 13, 2023

Wildfires across Canada are forcing some forestry companies to pause operations, particularly in Quebec. 

Close to five million hectares have been burned so far, and workers in some forestry communities have been evacuated, said Derek Nighbor, president and CEO of the Forest Products Association of Canada. 

"The impact is significant," he said, adding, "it's really varying across the country." 

Some mills and woodlands operations across the country are unable to operate right now for safety reasons, he said.

One of the companies forced to suspend operations is Montreal-headquartered Resolute Forest Products Inc. 

"For Resolute, we are particularly impacted by the boreal forest devastation in Quebec, where 2023 is already shaping up the be the worst year in over three decades in terms of the extent of area affected," spokesman Seth Kursman said in an email. 

"Although wildfire is a natural part of forest regeneration, the unseasonal heat and lack of rain has prompted many fires to erupt at the same time, making them very difficult to manage."

Kursman said the company last week suspended all woodlands operations across Quebec, and suspended operations at its Senneterre and Comtois sawmills in the Abitibi and Nord-du-Québec regions. The company also suspended operations at the Girardville and La Doré wood products facilities in Lac-Saint-Jean as well as the Outardes sawmill in the Côte-Nord region, but was able to restart the Outardes operations shortly after suspending them thanks to cooler temperatures and rain. 

Quebec has so far seen the biggest impact in recent weeks when it comes to forestry companies' operations being affected by wildfires, said Nighbor. The association is also particularly concerned about the fire outside Edson, Alta., he said. 

Lumber prices are also rising as the fires continue, with lumber futures for July up 6.8 per cent Tuesday evening compared with a week earlier. 

In a note last week, RBC Capital Markets analysts Paul Quinn and Matthew McKellar said forest fires can contribute to higher lumber prices, likely due to either constrained supply or the fear of constrained supply leading to buyers increasing inventories. The analysts noted at the time that lumber futures had ticked higher, attributing that to the current fires, and also noted that significant fires can affect longer-term timber supply. 

Nighbor said that even once the fires are under control, it won't be business as usual for companies that have paused operations, as they have to assess the impact of the fires on supply. 

"The next question is, what forests have been impacted? And how bad have they been impacted?" he said. "We'll then be able to assess the impact on timber supply, and what needs to be done to either salvage or get some of the dying or dead or decayed stuff out of the bush so it doesn't become kindling for the next fire season."

Resolute's infrastructure appears to be intact so far, said Kursman, but the company expects that some of its woodlands contractor partners will have lost critical equipment. 

The company is in the process of planning the harvest of burned trees as soon as the province gives Resolute the green light to resume woodlands operations, said Kursman. 

"This must be done as quickly as possible before insects infest and further degrade the trees," he said. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 13, 2023.