Petro-Canada's Edmonton Refinery Reopens

"The plan is to bring up our inventory. If you drive by a service station and see prices listed where the zeroes used to be, then that station has gas," said Petro-Can spokesman Jon Hamilton. He said all service stations will not necessarily have gasoline by the Labour Day long weekend. "We still sell diesel, and the convenience stores are open, but the service  stations ran out of gas at different times, so I can't say when they will all have gas."

Hamilton says Petro-Canada will keep the 40 extra trucks it added to bring fuel from Vancouver to central B.C. and parts of Alberta, an expensive proposition. "We'll keep shipping up fuel. It's all about having product available for our customers."

Hamilton says engineers are still studying the reasons behind the catalytic cracking unit failure. Part of the refinery has been in shutdown as it prepares to accept oilsands bitumen as its feedstock this fall.

Petro-Canada had 120 staff and consultants working around the clock to fix the cat cracker. The firm was short 125,800 barrels of refined products the refinery produced daily. Petro-Canada has 137 service stations in Alberta and 62 in  British Columbia  that are normally supplied by the refinery.

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