Canada's Irving Oil was fined C$4 million ($3.11 million) on Thursday for what authorities said was the private refiner and distributor's role in a derailment that killed 47 people in 2013 in Quebec province.
Irving Oil has pleaded guilty to 34 offences including carrying erroneous shipping documents and inadequately training staff, according to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada. In July 2013, the downtown section of the town of Lac Megantic was destroyed following the derailment of a Montreal Maine & Atlantic Railway, Ltd train carrying Bakken crude oil. Irving Oil operates the refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick, to which the crude in the derailed train was headed. The company is part of a group of family-controlled firms that are major employers in the eastern province. "Irving Oil believes strongly in the importance of safety and regulatory compliance across all of our operations and we take these charges very seriously," the company said in a statement. "The misclassification of crude oil did not cause or contribute to the railway accident in any way." (Reporting by Vijaykumar Vedala and Nithin Prasad in Bengaluru; Editing by Richard Chang)