(Bloomberg) -- More than 300 wildfires in British Columbia have forced Canadian lumber mills to shut as hot, dry weather sparked blazes across swaths of western Canada and the U.S.
Norbord Inc., the largest North American producer of oriented strand board used in residential construction, suspended production at its mill in 100 Mile House in central B.C. but stressed that, for now, the mill is safe.
“We were in a zone that got evacuated Sunday night so we shut the mill down and that continues to be the situation,” Norbord Chief Financial Officer Robin Lampard said by phone Tuesday morning. The Toronto-based company has 440 million square feet of annual production capacity. It hasn’t disclosed the cost per day of the shutdown, Lampard said.
Canfor Corp.’s operations aren’t directly affected by the wildfires, spokeswoman Corinne Stavness said in an email Tuesday. Interfor Corp. couldn’t be immediately reached for comment.
On Monday, West Fraser Timber Co., one of Canada’s largest lumber producers backed by billionaire Jim Pattison, said it shut three locations in B.C. — 100 Mile House, Williams Lake and Chasm.
West Fraser said it’s uncertain how long the operations will be suspended and is unable to assess the impact on lumber and plywood production. The facilities represent annual production capacity of 800 million board feet of lumber and 270 million square feet of plywood.
The company couldn’t be immediately reached early Tuesday.
|Evacuations across California, Colorado and B.C.
West Fraser declined 0.3% to C$60.47 at 10:16 a.m. in Toronto trading, while Norbord and Canfor were both down 0.1% and Interfor Corp. fell 0.7%.
Also on Monday, Kinder Morgan Inc. said its Trans Mountain crude pipeline is still operating but the blazes were in the “vicinity.” A spokesman for Kinder Morgan wasn’t immediately available on Tuesday to update the situation.
Wildfires have swept across the western U.S. and Canada, forcing thousands of evacuations across California, Colorado and B.C., and prompting military personnel to mobilize on both sides of the border to help battle the flames.
|Oil pipeline
B.C. declared its first state of emergency in 14 years over the weekend. As of midnight Monday, 332 fires larger than 0.1 hectares were burning in the province, according to the BC Wildfire Service. More than 14,000 people have been evacuated in the Pacific Coast province, according to broadcaster CBC.
Some of the worst fires have been raging in the province’s central region, an area that’s home to mining, forestry and ranching. Kinder Morgan’s pipeline, which carries 300,000 barrels a day of crude oil and refined fuels from neighboring Alberta to the Vancouver area for export to the U.S., also passes through the region.
Kinder Morgan said in an email Monday that it’s “monitoring the area and taking preventative measures to ensure the safety of our operations.”
Last year, wildfires five times the size of New York City swept through Alberta’s Fort McMurray, the gateway to the world’s third-largest oil reserves, forcing about 80,000 people out of their homes. Those blazes curtailed more than a million barrels of daily crude output as companies including Suncor Energy Inc., ConocoPhillips and Royal Dutch Shell Plc cut production.
|Major mines
So far, no major mines appear to have had their output impacted. Vancouver-based Taseko Mines Ltd. — operator of Canada’s second-biggest open-pit copper mine in B.C.’s Cariboo region where seven major fires are currently burning — said Monday that some of its workers have been personally affected by the fires but that the Gibraltar mine continues to operate normally.
Teck Resources Ltd.’s Highland Valley copper mine lies just south of a major fire reported by the B.C. Wildfire Service at Ashcroft Reserve. “We are closely monitoring the situation and at this time we do not anticipate an impact on mining operations,” spokesman Chad Pederson said in an email Monday. “No other Teck operation is affected by wildfires at this time.”
Related: Wildfires: An expanding threat?
Copper Mountain Mining Corp., which has a mine 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Princeton, B.C., briefly lost power due to a line being downed but is operating normally, Dan Gibbons, a spokesman, said by phone. First-aid personnel from the company have been sent to Princeton to help the evacuation center there, he added. Copper Mountain is the only miner in B.C. to have reported an impact as of Monday, according to the Ministry of Energy and Mines.
Local fire officials in Arizona, Colorado, California and Nevada said Monday that they didn’t know of any mines affected by the fires. Company spokesmen for Barrick Gold Corp. and Newmont Mining Corp. said mining operations in Nevada had been unaffected.
Copyright 2018 Bloomberg. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader
Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
