As industry and energy regulators again were forced to stay away from their offices in Calgary’s flooded downtown a state of emergency still prevailed Monday in the city and much of southern Alberta, according to government and industry sources.

A spokesperson for Calgary-based Encana Corp. noted the company had the capacity for up to 3,000 of its employees to work from home during the emergency, and similarly a spokesperson for the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) told NGI that its offices remained closed without power, noting that the offices likely will remain closed until at least Wednesday.

All other AER locations were to remain open except for the Medicine Hat Field Centre, which the spokesperson said had made alternate arrangements during the state of emergency. Generally road and building closures, along with power outages, were affecting the industry and many others.

While the Encana spokesperson said it was still too early to fully assess the flooding’s impact to the company’s Canadian business, “we believe that [so far] it has had minimal impact on operations. To our knowledge there were only two shallow gas well sites located southeast of Calgary impacted by the flood.”

Last Friday, flood debris damage to a wellhead pipeline in the Turner Valley south of Calgary caused a sour gas leak. It was brought under control in less than 24 hours, according to the AER and the natural gas production operator, Calgary-based Legacy Oil & Gas Inc. (see Daily GPI, June 24).

Legacy was in the process of shutting down production at the Turner Valley Field when trees and other debris caught in raging Sheep River floodwaters caused a flow line rupture that sent a low rate of flowing gas that was about 1% hydrogen sulfide (H2S), or “sour gas,” into the atmosphere.

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