Motorists looking to fill up their gas tank in Merritt this weekend should be able to find a full pump.
Petro-Canada stations across Western Canada, including here in the Nicola Valley, experienced shortages in gasoline this past week due to problems at an Edmonton refinery and wildfire-related shutdowns of oil sands production.
Suncor spokesperson Sneh Seetal told the Herald that their oil sands operations are expected to be back online by the end of this week and the unit outage at the Edmonton refinery has been brought back into service.
She said that this means operations should be returning to normal and they will be looking to replenish sites that are out of gas as quickly as possible.
“And we will be using all the logistics available to us — truck, rail, pipeline — to get product out to customers very quickly,” Seetal said.
The local Petro-Canada along Voght Street, however, hasn’t been refuelled yet. An employee at the gas station told the Herald Friday afternoon that they’re still out of fuel, and have been without regular or diesel for a week.
The Pertro-Canada station at the 7-11 along Nicola Avenue, however, has fuel again after running dry a few days ago.
As for other gas stations in town, Chevron, Shell, Super Save Gas, Husky and the gas bar at Extra Foods reportedly have gasoline, and some noted they recently received deliveries.
Earlier this week senior petroleum analyst for Canada with Gasbuddy.com, Dan McTeague, told the Herald that Suncor’s shortage could also impact other gas stations as more people would be relying on the supply of alternative sources.
The local Shell ran out of gasoline for about four days this past week, and Husky was dry for two while Chevron and Super Save Gas ran out only momentarily.
