(Adds details on injured worker, comment from provincial health
and safety official)
By Jeffrey Hodgson
TORONTO, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Nexen Energy executives
apologized on Saturday for an explosion at the company's Long
Lake oil sands facility in Alberta that killed one employee,
left another critically injured and shut down the site for an
indefinite period.
Fang Zhi, who heads the unit of China's CNOOC Ltd 0883.HK ,
said the incident marked one of the darkest days in Nexen's
history.
"Our thoughts are with the families," he told reporters in
Calgary.
The company said the injured worker had been taken to the
burn unit of a hospital in the provincial capital of Edmonton.
The explosion happened on Friday afternoon at the site south
of Fort McMurray, Alberta.
Ron Bailey, Nexen's senior vice-president of Canadian
operations, said the facility was shut down as quickly as
possible.
The company has also shut down its upgrader there and
stopped its steam-assisted gravity drainage operation, resulting
in a complete halt to production.
NO TIMELINE FOR RESTART
The company is working with regulators and conducting its
own investigation. Bailey said there was no schedule for
resuming production at the site.
"The priority right now is to shut down safely, suspend
operations and understand what went on," he said. "I couldn't
even speculate today as to how long that will be."
The lost production will be just under 50,000 barrels a day,
he said.
Bailey confirmed that the explosion happened in the
facility's hydrocracker unit.
According to the company's website, the hydrocracker is
where hydrogen is combined with partially upgraded oil to remove
sulfur and produce synthetic crude.
A spokeswoman with the Alberta government's Occupational
Health and Safety arm said the explosion happened as the workers
were changing out valves on a compressor.
She said a "stop work" order was in place for the facility
until it is deemed safe to start operating again but could not
speculate on how long that would take.
The incident comes after Nexen discovered a pipeline leak
last July near the same facility that caused one of North
America's largest oil-related spills on land. It apologized soon
afterward for that leak.
Last August, the Alberta Energy Regulator ordered Nexen to
shut 95 pipelines at the Long Lake facility as part of an
investigation into the spill. It resumed full production in
September.
(Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)