Imperial CEO says cleaner crude production a reality

CALGARY • Imperial Oil Ltd. will have to scale back plans to double production by the end of the decade if planned oil pipelines are delayed, its new CEO said Thursday. But Richard Kruger, the Minnesotan who took the controls of Canada’s oldest oil company on March 1, said he’s confident that Keystone XL from Alberta to the U.S. Gulf and other proposed pipelines to Canada’s West and East will go ahead.

Imperial Oil Ltd on Saturday said production is underway at its Kearl oil sands project in eastern Alberta, five months after the original target date for the company’s biggest undertaking yet.

Imperial Oil Ltd said on Monday its expects its $12.9-billion Kearl oil sands project to begin operating within the next two weeks, more than three months past its original target, but the company cannot yet say how much oil the plant will initially produce. Pius Rolheiser, a spokesman for Imperial, said operations at the first of Kearl’s three production trains, capable of handling up to 50,000 barrels of heavy oil sands crude per day, will begin by month’s end.

Capacity at Hangingstone, in northeastern Alberta, will increase to 30,000 barrels of heavy crude oil a day from about 6,000 to 7,000 barrels Japan Petroleum Exploration Co., the nation’s second-biggest oil explorer, plans to more than quadruple output at its Canadian oil sands project to meet U.S. demand for the fuel.

Suncor Energy Inc is expected to shelve plans for a multibillion-dollar oil sands processing plant in northern Alberta when it announces the fate of the facility in the coming days, blaming a forecast for weakening returns. The decision by Canada’s largest oil company on its long-delayed and partially built Voyageur upgrading plant in Alberta is one of a pair of major developments in the oil sands due this week, the other being the targeted start-up of Imperial Oil Ltd’s Kearl mining project after about four years of construction.

CALGARY — At least one Calgary oil executive is appealing to Canadian pocket books as the U.S. State Department decides the fate of TransCanada Corp.’s Alberta-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline. Export constraints on Alberta heavy oil production are costing each Canadian $1,200 per year, the chief executive of Cenovus Energy Inc. said Thursday.

Canadian heavy oil prices slid a further $4 as traders absorbed news of Enbridge’s decision to ration capacity on Lines 4 and 67 that transport oil from Alberta to the United States due to power outages in December. Western Canada Select declined by $4 to a $41-a-barrel discount to U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate oil at 1:45 p.m. EST, close to the record discount of $42.50 touched on December 14.

Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. says an expansion to its Horizon oil sands mine is currently tracking 10% under budget as contractors and service providers compete for work in the Fort McMurray, Alta. region. “The availability of construction contractors and related services has been better than expected,” president Steve Laut told analysts on a conference call Friday to discuss the company’s first-quarter earnings. “As a result, we continue to see bidders sharpen their pencils.”