Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation Development’s two Petro-Canada stations are among many across Western Canada running dry because of a fuel shortage.
The shortage has been caused by lower crude production because of the Fort McMurray wildfires and an unplanned outage at an Edmonton refinery, according to Syncrude spokeswoman Sneh Seetal.
Peter Gambin manages the two Prince Albert Petro-Can locations. He says they ran out at the 2nd Avenue location around 3:30 p.m. on Thursday and the second around 9:30 p.m.
He admits it’s a huge blow to their operations, pointing out that when your primary function is to provide fuel “it’s tough when you have no gas.”
However, customers “have been pretty understanding,” Gambin said.
To help fill the gap, Suncor is bringing in more gasoline and diesel by truck and rail from its own network as well as from third parties.
However, Gambin said he’s done a lot of legwork to find an interim supplier. By Friday night, he expects gas sourced from Winnipeg to make its way to their reserves.
Gambin says he doesn’t recall anything like this happening in the 11 years they’ve been in operation.