Parkland temporarily shuts down Burnaby refinery

Parkland Corp., Calgary, has temporarily shut down processing operations at subsidiary Parkland Refining (B.C.) Ltd.’s 55,000-b/d refinery on Burrard Inlet in North Burnaby, near North Vancouver, BC. Normal operations at the Burnaby refinery are expected to be restored in about 4 weeks, the company said in a release Jan. 24.

To ensure reliability of supply, the company has increased imports of refined products into its on-site shipping terminal to be delivered to customers across the lower mainland of Vancouver Island.

"Due to recent extreme cold weather, we proactively initiated steps to pause processing operations at the refinery," said Alex Coles, vice-president and general manager, Burnaby refinery. "While restarting, we encountered an issue with a processing unit on Jan. 21, 2024. As a result, we paused the restart and the refinery's processing operations remain temporarily shut down."

The refinery's blending, shipping, terminal, and rack activities remain operational, enabling refined fuels to be offloaded from ships and rail directly into the refinery, where they can be stored and distributed to customers, Parkland said.

Details about the issue encountered at the processing unit were not disclosed. According to the company website, scheduled maintenance is expected to occur in February.