The update was announced Tuesday, through an internal email from Jay Froc, the company’s senior vice president of oilsands mining and upgrading. Spokesperson for Canadian Natural Resources, Julie Woo, confirmed the message’s contents in a Wednesday email.
“We will be confirming that all site personnel are fully vaccinated for COVID-19. If we are unable to confirm immunization status, personnel can participate in our rapid testing program as an alternative,” said Woo. “We are taking these steps to further enhance the strong safety measures already in place to protect our workforce and the communities where we operate.”
Canadian Natural Resources had the worst COVID-19 outbreak of the pandemic this past spring. Alberta Health data from Aug. 4 shows there were at least 1,988 COVID-19 cases reported at the company’s Albian, Horizon and Jackfish locations. Five cases were active at the time and six workers at the sites had died from the virus. Temporary workers from outside Alberta accounted for 322 cases.
Horizon had the most COVID-19 cases compared to anywhere else in the oilsands, with 1,617 cases that included 287 out-of-province workers. Five workers died from COVID-19.
It is not known how many workers are recovering or disabled from long-term impacts from COVID-19.
Canadian Natural Resources is the first oilsands company making workers either get vaccinated or go through rapid testing. The company has offered on-site vaccination clinics to workers, as did Syncrude, Suncor, Imperial Oil, Cenovus, CNOOC, PetroChina and ConocoPhillips.
More to come…
