The oil and gas sector, like all industries, is also exposed to climate risk in a physical sense. That risk has been hammered home this month, as out-of-control wildfires in northern Alberta forced several Canadian oilsands companies to evacuate non-essential workers from their sites.In 2023, Suncor Energy Inc. filed a disclosure document laying out what would happen if an extreme weather event in northern Alberta were to force a 10-day shutdown of its Base Plant oilsands mine.
But the oil and gas sector, like all industries, is also exposed to climate risk in a physical sense. That risk has been hammered home this month, as out-of-control wildfires in northern Alberta forced several Canadian oilsands companies to evacuate non-essential workers from their sites.Suncor itself, Canada's second-largest oilsands producer by volume, has temporarily curtailed production at its Firebag complex due to the fire danger.
More than 40 per cent of the world's commercially recoverable oil and gas reserves are highly exposed to the effects of climate change, according to a 2021 report by risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft. For example, nearly half of the total petroleum refinery capacity in the U.S. and 51 per cent of that country's total natural gas processing plant capacity is located along the Gulf Coast.