By Nia Williams and Liz Hampton
EDMONTON, Alberta, May 11 (Reuters) - Market participants
are closely watching on Wednesday for the prospect of further
restarts by Canadian oil sands producers near wildfire-ravaged
Fort McMurray as some companies began slowly bringing operations
back online.
Top provincial and industry officials on Tuesday said
production in much of the region should ramp up soon. Facilities
north of the one-time Alberta boomtown that had been shuttered
largely because of heavy smoke rather than fire were likely to
come back on line first, in a matter of days in many cases.
Roughly 1 million barrels per day (bpd) of output has been
lost to the fire, about half of the oil sands' usual daily
production, as producers and pipeline operators curbed
activities and moved workers out of harm's way.
The wildfire, which has spread over 229,000 hectares
(566,000 acres), is still burning, though favorable weather
overnight was seen helping firefighters.
"Good progress is expected to continue with the cooler
weather," Alberta wildfire information officer Travis
Fairweather said.
The fire moved south and east for much of Tuesday, shifting
away from the area's largest oil production facilities and into
sparsely populated areas. A handful of smaller facilities
remained under fire threat, however, and some could not yet be
reached for damage assessments.
Royal Dutch Shell Plc RDSa.L became the first company to
resume its operation in the center of Canada's oil sands region.
The company restarted its Albian Sands mines at a reduced rate
and would use fly-in staff to ramp up operations, it said on
Monday. The facility can produce up to 255,000 bpd.
Syncrude, controlled by Suncor Energy Inc SU.TO , restarted
power generation at its oil sands mine in Aurora, north of the
city, on Tuesday as it began planning to resume operations. The
site has a total capacity of around 315,000 bpd.
But even as oil producers began to plan for the return of
workers, the roughly 88,000 residents who last week hurriedly
evacuated from Fort McMurray grappled with the reality that they
would not be able to return to their homes for weeks.
Travel to the city remains restricted to essential services,
including commercial vehicles carrying equipment and supplies
for oil sand operations, though not workers.
This could create more delays for the producers, as the
specialists who run the oil production sites are also among the
residents displaced by the blaze and they may need to be flown
in to the projects.