Old Man Winter can make it extremely difficult to work outdoors for not only the workers but also equipment.
On Jan. 29, production at Syncrude Canada was suspended following several instrument freeze-ups as a result of extremely cold weather conditions. Temperatures during the unusually cold snap dipped to around -54.4 Fahrenheit with the wind chill. Most units affected by the freeze-ups had returned to operations by Feb. 5, with crude oil production resuming to about 180,000 barrels a day, a little more than half its capacity. Syncrude was working on bringing the remaining units back up.