Canadian Refinery Maintenance Prompts Diesel Shortage

By Aaron Clark

Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Canadian refinery maintenance projects are crimping supplies and creating a shortage of diesel fuel, according to plant spokesmen.

``We have seen the demand for diesel sales go through the roof,'' said Jon Hamilton, a Petro-Canada spokesman. ``Diesel is available but it's a lot tighter than it normally is. We are bringing product from the east and the west but it's not a gap we can fill.''

Husky Energy Inc.'sDennis Floate said it is difficult to gauge how widespread the shortages are.

``What production is coming through is being allocated by the suppliers to the retailers,'' he said in an interview.

Petro-Canada's Edmonton, Alberta, refinery is having planned maintenance that has cut the plant's output since early August. Even though the plant accumulated inventories before the maintenance, the Calgary-based company is trying to import fuel from other regions to offset shortfalls, Hamilton said.

Imperial Oil Ltd., Canada's largest refiner, said work on an atmospheric tower, a diesel-making unit at its Strathcona plant near Edmonton, Alberta, is affecting diesel supplies in Canada.


``It is planned maintenance,'' Pius Rolheiser, an Imperial spokesman, said in an interview. ``This work will ultimately increase the refinery's ability to produce diesel, but in the short term it will have an effect on diesel supplies.''

Rolheiser said the unit would likely return in ``a period of weeks rather than months.''

Suncor Restart

Suncor Energy Inc., the world's second-largest oil-sands producer, is starting units at its Sarnia, Ontario, refinery, after completing several weeks of maintenance and repairs.

Maintenance began Sept. 2 and focused on a gasoline hydrotreater and a hydrocracker at the refinery, spokesman Jason Vaillant said today.

``I don't yet have a sequence of what we are bringing back first, but we are on schedule,'' Vaillant said in an interview. ``We began the restart and are doing what we can to bring the units up safely over the next few days.''

The refinery can process 70,000 barrels of oil a day, according to the company's Web site.

A refinery in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, run by the Consumers' Co-operative Refinery Ltd., is operating at reduced processing rates, according to a plant official.

The refinery is operating at ``slightly reduced'' rates, said a refinery official who declined to give his name. The plant, which is owned by Federated Co-operatives Limited, can process 100,000 barrels a day.

To contact the reporter on this story: Aaron Clark in New York at aclark27@bloomberg.net