Suncor restarts its Edmonton refinery-good news for motorists

Jun 13, 2018 | 7:53 AM

KAMLOOPS — Suncor Energy Inc. says a fuel supply shortage that left some of its Petro-Canada stations in the four western provinces with no gasoline to pump should clear up in the next few days.

Stations began running out of fuel about two weeks ago in Edmonton and Calgary, followed by some Petro-Canada outlets in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and B.C.

Spokeswoman Nicole Fisher said Suncor’s 142,000 barrel-a-day Edmonton refinery was restarted last week after being shut down for regular spring maintenance and the company is working to resupply the stations.

Some stations in Edmonton that sat empty for weeks have began selling fuel again in recent days.

Several stations in the Interior, including some in Kamloops, had “out of gas” signs out in the past few days.

Fisher said the shortage of gasoline and other fuels in Western Canada was made worse because other suppliers were also off line, preventing Petro-Canada stations from using alternative sources.

Fisher said Suncor is apologizing to customers who were inconvenienced by the outages, adding the last time it had such severe shortfall was two years ago in the wake of the Fort McMurray wildfire.