Canadian stocks rally as oil sands mines to reopen after Alberta wildfire

Canada's main stock market in Toronto staged a broad advance Tuesday as oil companies in Fort McMurray expected to resume production in coming days that has been disrupted by a huge wildfire in Alberta.

The Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark Standard & Poor's/TSX Composite Index gained 211.35 point, or 1.56 percent, to close at 13,775.19 points. Seven of the TSX index's eight main sub-sectors were higher.

Oil prices rose Tuesday amid growing concerns about global crude output disruption. The West Texas Intermediate for June delivery moved up 1.22 U.S. dollars to settle at 44.66 dollars a barrel, while Brent crude for July delivery increased 1.89 dollars to close at 45.52 dollars a barrel.

Energy and mining sectors led the TSX advance, up 2.43 percent and 2.77 percent respectively. The most influential movers included Suncor Energy, which rose 3.85 percent to 34.52 Canadian dollars (26.73 U.S. dollars), and Canadian Natural Resources, which advanced 3.13 percent to 36.95 Canadian dollars.

French utility EDF announced a deal to build three offshore wind parks in France with Enbridge, whose shares rose 3.46 percent to 51.66 Canadian dollars.

Japanese oil refiner Idemitsu Kosan said Tuesday its joint venture with Canada's AltaGas would suspend a liquefied natural gas project in Canada for the foreseeable future due to low energy prices. AltaGas Ltd. added 1.03 percent to 29.38 Canadian dollars.

The financials group advanced too, behind a 1.31 percent gain for Royal Bank of Canada to 76.61 Canadian dollars, while Toronto-Dominion Bank was up 1.05 percent to 55.93 Canadian dollars.

The oil industry's focus is shifting to restarting more than a million barrels a day of output to generate badly needed money for companies and the Alberta government as they deal with the fires that has devastated Fort McMurray.

Energy company executives met Tuesday with Alberta Premier Rachel Notley to discuss targets and plans to get oil sands facilities running again in the wake of the wildfire. None of the oil sands facilities north of Fort McMurray were damaged by the wildfire.

Estimates of how long it will take to power oil sands mines, steam-driven projects and pipelines back up vary, with the minimum being about a week, assuming little to no damage was done to crucial equipment and infrastructure. That will be inspected in the coming days.

Canadian oil giant Suncor said it is assessing related infrastructure for possible damage, and that restart depends, in part, on the availability of critical pipelines that ship supplies to market.

"We have routinely brought down assets as part of planned maintenance and safely ramped them back up within days and we believe we can do so in these circumstances," said Suncor's chief executive officer Steve Williams.

Shell Canada said Tuesday that it had resumed production at its Albian Sands mining operations about 95 kilometers north of Fort McMurray after a seven-day closure, marking the first oil sands mine shut down by wildfire to be restarted.

The mines were closed to allow employees to tend to their families and to free up Shell's work camp to accommodate some of the 80,000 people evacuated from Fort McMurray.

Shell said the decision to restart was made because of improvements in air quality and weather and because the fire now has moved away from the site.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he will visit the fire-devastated community of Fort McMurray on Friday.

The Canadian dollar traded higher at 0.7742 U.S. dollar, compared with Monday's closing rate of 0.7714 U.S. dollar. Endit