Workers at Irving Oil Ltd. were due back for their usual shifts on Wednesday after an explosion rocked Canada’s largest oil refinery and rattled residents of Saint John on Monday.
Gasoline and diesel markets shrugged off news of the accident at the 350,000-barrel-a-day Irving plant, which provides much of the Maritime provinces’ gasoline, diesel and heating oil and also exports to Irving stations throughout New England.
In trading on Tuesday, wholesale gasoline prices were up 1.78 cents to US$2.0696 on the spot market in New York harbour. Irving was on a maintenance shutdown when the explosion happened on Thanksgiving Day, sending two workers to hospital with minor injuries. The company said the fire occurred in a diesel unit, which resulted in a three-cent increase in diesel prices in New York trading.
“We can confirm that the refinery as a whole is safe and the specific site of the incident is isolated and contained,” the company said on Twitter. It said it had confirmed that there were no air-quality concerns and was planning to have its crew back on site for the night shift.
Because it was on a maintenance shutdown, Irving would have storage tanks full so it could supply its customers, said Dan McTeague, an analyst with Gasbuddy.com. As well, petroleum product inventories are at 15-year highs in the U.S. Northeast, providing a cushion for any outages.
He said wholesale prices for Toronto were down half a cent from Sunday’s level, which should prompt a one-cent drop in pump prices in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. However, the hurricane in the U.S. Gulf Coast could cause some supply disruptions later this week.
Pump prices were down across the board in Canada on Tuesday, according to the Kent Group daily price survey. In Toronto, regular unleaded was $1.29 a litre, off 1.1 cents from Monday. Maritime provinces regulate their gasoline prices, and they showed no change on Tuesday.
Irving’s location on the East Coast gives both the company and its customers access to plenty of supply to offset any reduction coming from the Saint John refinery, Kent Group analyst Jason Parent said. Inventories typically build up in the fall with the end of the North American summer driving season, Mr. Parent said.
The explosion and fire raised air-quality concerns among residents, Saint John Mayor Don Darling said. However, the city’s emergency services confirmed that the danger of further explosions had passed.
“People were nervous, scared and the euphoric over the fact that nobody was killed and there were only minor injuries,” Mr. Darling said in a phone interview.
Mr. Darling said he will ensure there is a full review of the city’s response to the refinery fire, including how it communicated to people who wanted information on the explosion. He said officials may make recommendations to Irving Oil based on what they hear about the company’s communications efforts.