CALGARY, Alberta May 8 (Reuters) - A female Suncor Energy employee has been killed by a bear on the company's oil sands base camp site near Fort McMurray in northern Alberta, a company spokeswoman said. 
 
 The large male black bear attacked the woman in a busy part of the sprawling industrial complex, approximately 25 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, on Wednesday afternoon. The employee was pronounced dead at the scene. 
 
 "We are shocked by this very unusual incident and there are no words to express the tragedy of this situation. Our thoughts and prayers go out to family, friends and co-workers," said Mark Little, Suncor executive vice president, Upstream. 
 
 "All of us need to focus on personal safety and I would urge everyone to be extremely vigilant in dealing with wildlife." 
 
 The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Alberta Environmental and Sustainable Resource Development (AESRD) responded to the incident and the bear was put down. 
 
 Suncor spokeswoman Sneh Seetal said at this stage there were limited details of what happened but a full investigation was underway into why the bear attacked. 
 
 "It's a major industrial site with lots of noise and activity. Other workers tried to intervene," she said. 
 
 AESRD officers are in the process of installing traps and cameras and helping patrol the borders of the site, Seetal added. 
 
 Suncor is Canada's largest oil and gas company, with the majority of production coming from the oil sands, a region heavily populated with bears and other wildlife. Black and grizzly bears come out of hibernation at this time of year. 
 
 This is the third employee death on Suncor's oil sands site this year, although the two other incidents were work-related. 
 
 Seetal said she did not know of any other bear attacks on site. (Editing by David Gregorio) ||||| WATCH: A worker at a Suncor oilsands site north of Fort McMurray was attacked by a bear in the middle of the afternoon. It all happened as her horrified co-workers tried to stop the attack. Francis Silvaggio reports. 
 
 EDMONTON – Global News has learned the Suncor employee who was killed by a black bear in northern Alberta on Wednesday was Fort McMurray resident Lorna Weafer. 
 
 The Suncor instrument technician reportedly came face to face with the bear shortly after coming out of a washroom at the company’s oil sands base plant, located about 25 kilometres north of Fort McMurray. 
 
 Global News has been told fellow employees witnessed the attack and tried to stop it, but were unable to. They called RCMP around 2:15 p.m. Wednesday; Weafer was later pronounced dead at the scene. 
 
 The 36-year-old was born in Ireland, and emigrated to Canada with her parents more than 30 years ago, according to The Irish Independent. 
 
 Dublin actor Alan O’Neill, a relative of Weafer’s, sent out the following message on Twitter regarding her death on Thursday: 
 
 Heartbreaking & devastating news for all my family at the very tragic passing of my beautiful vivacious cousin in Canada. #RIPLornaWeafer xx — Alan O'Neill (@alanwoneill) May 8, 2014 
 
 Her family has sent out a statement, which reads, in part: 
 
 “Lorna’s warmth and compassion knew no bounds. She had a busy full life, loved her family and her dog. 
 
 
 
 She absolutely adored children and had volunteered as a Big Sister. 
 
 
 
 Lorna was a warm, conscientious person and she made fast friends. 
 
 
 
 Although Lorna had only been working with Suncor as an instrumentation tech since October, she was extremely well-liked and had many friends at the company… 
 
 
 
 She had been talking about going back to study and become a psychologist because she loved helping people – she’d have helped anyone. And she often did. 
 
 
 
 She will be greatly missed by her immediate and extended family, and her many, many friends. 
 
 
 
 On behalf of our family we’d like to recognize the co-workers who tried to help Lorna. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We understand you are grieving as well and we are sending you our best regards. 
 
 
 
 Due to the sudden and tragic circumstances of Lorna’s death, we are asking for privacy while we grieve. 
 
 Suncor’s executive vice president Mark Little said the company is shocked “by this very unusual incident.” 
 
 “There are no words to express the tragedy of this situation. Our thoughts and prayers go out to family, friends and co-workers.” 
 
 “We don’t know why this happened and that’s why it’s so important we conduct a complete, thorough investigation,” Suncor spokesperson Sneh Seetal after the event on Wednesday. 
 
 According to Alberta Occupational Health and Safety (OHS), the bear, which was later killed by officers, was male and of “above-average size.” 
 
 READ MORE: How common are black bear attacks? And what should you do if you ever encounter a bear in the wilderness? 
 
 “There are a lot of people on these sites, so we had to take the safety of those people into account,” explained Cpl. George Cameron of Ft. McMurray RCMP. “That’s probably the main reason why the bear was shot. We didn’t want this unfortunate incident to happen again.” 
 
 The wildlife officer investigating this case says there was no open food in the area at the time, and the garbage bin was sealed. 
 
 It’s believed the attack was of a predatory nature. 
 
 Traps have since been set up in the area, and another bear has been caught. 
 
 “Part of the wildlife training that we do offer for our employees and that employees partake in does speak to alerting any sightings through to people on site so appropriate steps can be taken,” Seetal said. 
 
 She said as a result of the attack, “we are reminding people not just at our site, but in the broader community, to be especially vigilant in dealing with wildlife.” 
 
 “We do know that the bears are coming out of hibernation now and so, from an Occupational Health and Safety Perspective, we want to ensure that all workers — whether at this site or any other — are well trained to know how to handle these situations should they occur, ” said Barrie Harrison of OHS. 
 
 OHS says it will work with Suncor to see if anything could have been done to avoid this attack. 
 
 It adds that it can’t recall any other time there’s been a wildlife attack on a job site in the province. 
 
 Follow @TrishKozicka 
 
 With files from Kendra Slugoski and Shannon Greer Global News, and The Canadian Press ||||| (Bloomberg) -- Canadian energy stocks from Suncor Energy Inc. to Enbridge Inc. tumbled after the New Democratic Party swept to power in Alberta, pledging to raise corporate taxes in an industry already buffeted by low oil prices and stalled pipelines. 
 
 The NDP, led by Rachel Notley, ended a 44-year Progressive Conservative dynasty by winning a majority of districts in elections Tuesday, according to Elections Alberta. The NDP promises to boost corporate taxes, review the government’s take of energy revenue, scale back advocacy for pipelines and phase out coal power more quickly. 
 
 “It’s completely devastating,” for energy companies and investors, Rafi Tahmazian, who helps manage C$1 billion ($831 million) in energy funds at Canoe Financial LP in Calgary, said on Tuesday. “The perception from the market based on their comments is they’re extremely dangerous.” 
 
 Suncor, Canada’s biggest oil producer by market value, dropped 4.3 percent to $36.69 at 10:14 a.m. in Toronto, pipeline company Enbridge fell 2.7 percent to C$61 while Canadian Oil Sands Ltd. slid 5.4 percent to C$12.76. The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Energy Index of 64 companies fell 3.1 percent, its biggest drop since Feb. 10. 
 
 West Texas Intermediate, the North American crude benchmark, rose 2.7 percent to $62 per barrel in early trade while the S&P 500 index of U.S. energy stocks rose. 
 
 The election results may stall investment in the oil patch, which is counting on more than C$500 billion in spending over the next three decades in the oil sands alone. 
 
 Capital Mobile 
 
 “The NDP’s stance on pipelines is clearly to remove government support of pipelines and be less of a cheerleader,” John Stephenson, chief executive officer of Stephenson & Co. said in a phone interview from Toronto. His firm manages about C$50 million. 
 
 Energy producers in Alberta, the heart of the Canadian industry, are cutting jobs, reducing drilling and shelving billions of dollars of new investment because of the oil price collapse. While U.S. crude’s rise to around $60 a barrel from a six-year low in March has injected fresh optimism into the industry, executives are preparing for a slow recovery to levels that would make new projects profitable in the oil sands, the world’s third-largest reserves. 
 
 “We are in a time when investors want to see a quick return on capital and less long lead time mega-projects,” according a report Wednesday by Dundee Capital Markets Inc. led by Brian Kristjansen. “Capital is extremely mobile and can easily move out of Alberta at the first sign of uncertainty.” 
 
 Clear Negative 
 
 U.S. investor clients of Calgary-based investment bank AltaCorp Capital Inc. were pulling positions in Canadian stocks in the run up to the election, anticipating an NDP victory, said analyst Jeremy McCrea. 
 
 Suncor, Imperial Oil Ltd., Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. and Cenovus Energy Inc. are among Canada’s largest oil-sands operators. 
 
 “Now is not the time for a royalty review,” said Jeff Gaulin, vice president of communications at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. “The uncertainty that that would create for investment would jeopardize jobs in Alberta.” 
 
 Good Partner 
 
 The energy lobby group is confident it can nonetheless work with Notley’s NDP, Gaulin said. 
 
 “Our government will be a good partner” for the energy industry, Notley, 51, said in her victory speech. 
 
 There’s a precedent for a stock sell-off based on Alberta energy policy. Canadian oil and gas stocks lost ground to their U.S. peers around October 2007 when the Progressive Conservative government raised royalty rates. The shares traded about 14 percent lower for more than a year, until early indications the government would consider reversing the hikes, according to an AltaCorp analysis. In 2010, the PCs led by Ed Stelmach retreated from most of the royalty boost. 
 
 “If you are invested in energy stocks, you should be concerned,” McCrea said. Drillers already face higher costs to extract oil and gas in Alberta than in many jurisdictions, so an increase in royalties would make the province even less competitive, he said. 
 
 The number of oil rigs deployed in Canada’s biggest energy-producing province is at its lowest since 2009 after oil lost half its value last year, according to Baker Hughes Inc. data. Already, Western Canada’s oil growth is poised to slow by 59 percent next year, according to the Canadian Energy Research Institute. 
 
 Keystone XL 
 
 Oil growth in the region will slow to 17,000 barrels a day by next year from 41,000 barrels a day in 2014 as conventional production from drilling declines and stays below last year’s levels through the rest of the decade, according to CERI. 
 
 While not in the party’s official platform, Notley has said she will not advocate for the Keystone XL and Northern Gateway pipelines, oil export projects that have come under fire from environmental opponents of the oil sands and communities fearful of spills along their paths. She has said that Kinder Morgan Inc.’s Trans Mountain line and TransCanada Corp.’s Energy East project are worth discussion. 
 
 The Alberta government has been a champion in Washington of Keystone XL, TransCanada’s $8 billion pipeline awaiting a decision by U.S. President Barack Obama. Previous provincial leaders have joined the Canadian government in raising awareness about oil-sands development and regulation to try to win U.S. support for Keystone, a line proposed in 2008 that would transport Canadian crude to the U.S. Gulf Coast.’’ 
 
 Minimum Wage 
 
 Under the NDP, the corporate tax rate will increase to 12 percent from 10 percent. Notley will form a committee to review royalties and has said she will support more refining of oil in the province, despite a commonly-held view by investors and companies that it isn’t profitable. 
 
 The new premier will also increase the minimum wage to C$15 an hour and impose stiffer environmental standards and monitoring, according to the party’s election platform. In addition, the NDP leader will ban gas drilling in urban areas. The NDP would phase out coal-fired power plants more quickly than federal regulations that limit them to a 50-year life. 
 
 Coal is the biggest contributor to the electricity supply in Alberta, where Westmoreland Coal Co., TransAlta Corp. and Teck Resources Ltd. are among producers. Teck dropped 2.6 percent to C$18.21 while TransAlta slide 4.3 percent to C$11.25. 
 
 Alberta and Saskatchewan lead the country in the use of coal for electricity, and both provinces have the highest per capita carbon emissions in Canada, at more than 60 metric tons, compared with 12.5 tons in Ontario, according to Environment Canada figures. 
 
 Still, Notley’s platform is a general guideline and the new premier will probably move carefully on economic policies, said Jim Lightbody, chair of the University of Alberta’s political science department in Edmonton. She wouldn’t be able to govern the province and make moves detrimental to the energy industry, he said. 
 
 “I would project that she moves carefully, cautiously, sensibly,” Lightbody said. 
 
 To contact the reporters on this story: Rebecca Penty in Calgary at rpenty@bloomberg.net; Robert Tuttle in Calgary at rtuttle@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Scanlan at dscanlan@bloomberg.net Carlos Caminada, Jacqueline Thorpe
– A female employee of Canada's largest oil and gas company was killed by a black bear at a work site in northern Alberta, reports the CBC. The 36-year-old had just emerged from a washroom at Suncor's oil-sands site when she encountered the bear, reports Global News. Co-workers tried in vain to save her, and she was pronounced dead at the scene. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police then killed the bear. “We don't know why this happened," says a company spokesperson, who promised an investigation. "We are reminding people to be especially vigilant in dealing with wildlife." Most of Suncor's production comes from these oil sands, also called tar sands, explains Reuters, and the company has a sprawling industrial complex at the site. The region is heavily populated with bears now emerging from hibernation, it adds.