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72-589: Since its first announcement in 2003, the megaproject jointly owned by Imperial Oil and ExxonMobil, but was controlled by Exxon, who owns 69% of Imperial Oil's shares. In 1997, Exxon submitted Kearl's initial public disclosure. In 2009, ExxonMobil—the American multinational corporation, headquartered in Texas—owned 30% of the Kearl Oil Sands Project in 2009, while Imperial Oil Limited owned 70% of

144-414: A joint-stock company with a capitalized value of $ 500,000. In addition to Englehart, the original shareholders included Frederick A. Fitzgerald , Isaac and Herman Waterman, William Spencer and his sons William and Charles, Thomas and Edward Hodgins, John Geary, Joseph Fallows, John Minhinnick, William English and John Walker. Together, the shareholders possessed twelve oil refineries and controlled 85% of

216-514: A 2004 article in the Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering (CJCE). The frothing treatment is part of an integrated process. Due to its high viscosity, heavy oil is much more challenging to produce and transport. Viscosity —the "internal resistance to the flow of fluid", is a physical property of crude oil—and an important parameter in the development and design of ultimate oil recovery and effective fluid flow pipelines. Viscosity

288-426: A 50 kilometres (31 mi) long new branch. At the first stage an engineering, procurement, and construction management contract was awarded to AMEC while Fluor Corp. was responsible for the development of infrastructure and facilities. The development is located on two oil-sands leases. Imperial holds 100 percent of the mining rights on Leases 6 and 87. Areas deemed suitable for surface mining are primarily in

360-640: A cheaper and higher quality product. In 1893, Ottawa reduced import duties on refined oil products from 7.2 cents to 6 cents per wine gallon , and in 1896, Wilfrid Laurier's government reduced the tariff again to 5 cents. Additionally, Laurier removed restrictions on tank cars and tank steamers, allowing foreign companies to bulk ship oil into Canada by rail or sea. Before, foreign companies had to repackage their product into oil barrels before entering Canada, adding roughly five cents in shipping and handling charges to each gallon of imported oil. In 1895, Imperial Oil's Board of Directors began negotiations to sell

432-600: A cleaner bitumen that is "virtually free of impurities." This creates a cleaner bitumen with lower levels of aqueous and mineral contaminants. In 2011 SNC Lavalin entered into a C$ 650-million contract to build a PSFT plant in the Athabaska oil sands region in 2012, the first in the Canadian oil sands industry. The first commercialization of the Paraffinic Froth Treatment (PFT) was undertaken by

504-646: A coker unit." Oil sand consists of a matrix of solid mineral material— quartz sand and clays, water, and the hydrocarbon , bitumen , which is the heaviest form of petroleum. According to the United Nations Institute for Training and Research , bitumen's normal viscosity is greater than 10 mPa·s and its density is greater than 1000 kg/m . Oil sands, before processing, comprise fine particles of silt and clay , that are 44 microns or less, and coarse particles of sand and rock, that are larger than 44 microns. Each grain of quartz sand, which

576-746: A deal for the Esso-branded stations to join the PC Optimum rewards program, beginning on June 1, 2018. Loblaw Companies had sold its network of 213 gas stations (all of which are attached to its various grocery store locations) to Brookfield Business Partners in 2017; Brookfield entered into an agreement with Imperial Oil to use the Mobil brand for these stations. As part of the sale agreement, these stations also continue to participate in PC Optimum. Froth treatment Bitumen froth treatment

648-620: A dividend of $ 93,000. Following the deal, Imperial Oil shut down the Silver Star refinery in Petrolia and moved its refining operations to Sarnia, Ontario. In a landmark 1911 anti-trust case , the U.S. Supreme Court ordered Standard Oil to break up into 34 separate companies. Ownership of Imperial Oil, as well Standard Oil's other subsidiaries outside the U.S., were all transferred to only one of those 34 successor firms, Jersey Standard (later renamed Exxon ). Imperial Oil discovered

720-554: A marketable synthetic crude oil from oil sands bitumen, the heavy oil can only be processed at special refineries that include a complex heavy oil upgrader with a coker unit. In Canada, the Regina, Saskatchewan - Co-op Refinery Complex —formerly the Consumers Co-operative Refinery Limited (CCRL)—has a heavy oil upgrader section of the plant with the necessary Coker unit capable of processing

792-518: A monthly record of 332,000 barrels per day (52,800 m/d) in June, 2021, as several "optimization projects" were completed. At a June 2003 Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) conference, investors were told that Kearl would be operational in 2012. In 2006, the initial phase began with Kiewit Corporation contracted to begin site development. The development was an open-pit mining operation, developed in three stages. The first phase

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864-543: A separate subsidiary, independent of Imperial Oil. From the 1934-35 season through the 1975-76 season , Imperial Oil was a sponsor of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation program Hockey Night in Canada for both radio and television broadcasts. Esso, which had three stars on their signs, sponsored Hockey Night in Canada 's three stars of the game. In the same era, the company

936-510: A tailings pond at the project, as the seepage has been ruled harmful to wildlife. The spill had first been noticed in May 2022, but Imperial had failed to give the required notification to federal regulators at the time. In response to regulatory requirements, Imperial Oil has been working on remediation which as of February 2024 remains ongoing The Kearl project faced a number of delays and cost escalations, due in part to complications associated with

1008-454: A three-year CA$ 560 million project to boost production by adding additional "crushing capacity and flow distribution". In July 2013, the largest pipeline company in Canada, Enbridge announced its 345 kilometres (214 mi) CA$ 1.3  billion Woodland Pipeline Extension Project to serve the Kearl oil sands project. In June 2008, Imperial/Exxon received government regulatory approval for

1080-557: A time when unemployment had increased in the province. The oil sands was negatively affected, with the number of people applying for employment insurance (EI) in Fort McMurray tripling in a 12-month period. Imperial Oil responded that they would be creating 100s of long-term, and thousands of short-term jobs with an eventual 1,000 people in the permanent workforce. In 2017, Imperial Oil reported Kearl averaging 178,000 barrels per day (28,300 m/d), and Imperial Oil and Exxon began

1152-431: A way to remove the sulphur content in the oil pumped at Lambton County . The high sulphur content in Canadian oil placed it at a disadvantage compared to the oil mined at Pennsylvania due to its "distinctive odour" when burned. Canadians called the product "skunk oil". Between 1885 and 1887, Frasch discovered that mixing copper oxide with the oil during the distilling process would remove the sulphur content and odour from

1224-500: Is a process used in the Athabasca oil sands (AOS) bitumen recovery operations to remove fine inorganics—water and mineral particles—from bitumen froth, by diluting the bitumen with a light hydrocarbon solvent—either naphthenic or paraffinic—to reduce the viscosity of the froth and to remove contaminants that were not removed in previous water-based gravity recovery phases. Bitumen with a high viscosity or with too many contaminants,

1296-548: Is also in use at Imperial Oil 's Kearl Oil Sands, and Teck Resources 's Fort Hills open-pit oil sands mining operation. Teck plans on using it at its proposed massive Frontier open-pit oil sands mining operation. PSFT technology, which eliminates the use of an upgrader, has a "lower GHG intensity than about half of the oil currently refined in the U.S.", according to Teck. By 2011, projected costs for Imperial Oil's Kearl "mega-mine" had increased to "C$ 10.9 billion from initial estimates of C$ 8 billion." Imperial cut costs by using

1368-425: Is extremely abrasive and has an angular shapes, is "completely enveloped within bitumen". Each sand grain is surrounded by a thin film of water and bitumen covers the aqueous layer and the angular sand grain. The bitumen-and water-covered grains of quartz sand stick to one another. When untreated, the highly abrasive oil sands would damage pipelines, trucks, and all the equipment used in mining and operations. As well,

1440-574: Is not suitable for transporting through pipelines or refining. The original and conventional naphthenic froth treatment (NFT) uses a naphtha solvent with the addition of chemicals. Paraffinic Solvent Froth Treatment (PSFT), which was first used commercially in the Albian Sands in the early 2000s, results in a cleaner bitumen with lower levels of contaminates, such as water and mineral solids. Following froth treatments, bitumen can be further upgraded using "heat to produce synthetic crude oil by means of

1512-539: Is one of Canada's major petroleum refiners and petrochemical producers. It supplies Esso -brand service stations . Imperial owns 25% of Syncrude , which is one of the world's largest oil sands operations. It also has holdings in the Alberta Oil Sands , and operates an oil sands mining operation with ExxonMobil, called Kearl Oil Sands . Imperial Oil is headquartered in Calgary , Alberta . It

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1584-617: Is one of the pressure–volume–temperature (PVT) properties that is estimated during the different stages of oil exploration, production, recovery, and transportation. In bitumen, asphaltenes , which are often defined as the fraction which cannot be dissolved in n-heptane , impact negatively in oils sands operations—they "impart high viscosity to crude oils" and can cause a "myriad of production problems." Asphaltenes are molecular substances found in crude oil along with saturates—saturated hydrocarbons such as alkanes , aromatic hydrocarbons , and resins , known as (SARA) . The first stage of

1656-831: The Clearwater and Lochsa River of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System out of concerns for the environment and for the adventure cycling routes. In December 2010, both Canadian and American unions questioned why Imperial Oil/ExxonMobil chose to give a CA$ 250 million contract to SungJin Geotec in South Korea to build 200 of the 600 oil extraction modules of equipment for the Kearl oil sands recovery processing. Ironworkers' Local 720's Harry Tostowaryk in Edmonton had no sympathy for Imperial Oil/ExxonMobil's plight as

1728-665: The Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB) estimated that the actual established reserves at over 5.5 billion barrels (870 × 10 ^  m). In 2003, the estimated daily production was 500,000 barrels per day (79,000 m/d) which would make Imperial "one of the largest producers of bitumen and synthetic oil". By 2009, estimates for Kearl's production at the first stage were approximately 110,000-barrel-per-day (17,000 m/d), with later expansions to more than 300,000 barrels per day (48,000 m/d). In June 2013, shortly after Kearl opened, it

1800-497: The Leduc Woodbend Devonian oil reef in 1947, marking the beginning of the contemporary period in Canadian oil and gas development. Drilling began on the landmark discovery well Leduc No. 1 on November 20, 1946. In 1989, Imperial Oil acquired Texaco 's Canadian operations . When Exxon and Mobil merged in 1999 to form ExxonMobil , the combined company continued to maintain Mobil's Canadian operations as

1872-542: The port of Lewiston , Idaho , through the U.S. states of Idaho and Montana to the Kearl Oil Sands Project. In April 2010, the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) called for a public meeting to consult with communities that would be affected by the proposed KMTP. In September 2010, residents of Idaho and Montana criticized the KMTP route which included U.S. Route 12 along the narrow curving byways of

1944-578: The 200 SungJin modules remained stuck in ports in Lewiston, Idaho and Vancouver, Washington . Tostowaryk said that in the area around Edmonton there were many module facilities sitting idle. With 400 modules either already built or under construction in Edmonton, Tostowaryk rejected Imperial Oil/ExxonMobil's explanations for not making all the modules in Edmonton, as "disjointed", while Cynthia Bergman and Imperial oil's Edmonton-based Bob Delaney claimed factors such as "total value" and competitiveness motivated

2016-453: The 200 modules apart and to use an alternate route, requiring hundreds of workers and delaying the project. This along with other factors added CA$ 2 billion dollars to the cost of the project. KMTP consisted of two hundred 210 feet (64 m)-long, 24 feet (7.3 m)-wide, 30 feet (9.1 m)-high vehicles carrying South Korean-made oil extraction modules that weigh nearly 335,000 pounds (152,000 kg) travelling for seven to ten days from

2088-458: The 2011 and 2012 "Kearl Module Transportation Project" (KMTP) in which enormous, South Korean-made oil extraction modules had to be transported across northwestern states with considerable opposition from residents in Idaho and Montana. Imperial/Exxon lost a battle against Idaho and Montana residents who opposed the transport of megaloads of the modules on their highways, forcing Imperial/Exxon to take

2160-695: The Athabasca Oil Sands Project (AOSP), in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo in the early 2000s. AOSP, also known as Albian Sands —is a joint venture between Canadian Natural Resources (CNRL) (70%), Chevron Canada (20%), and Shell Canada (10%) AOSP consists of the Muskeg River Mine, Jack Pine Mine and the Scotford Upgrader. CNRL purchased Shell's shares in 2017. PSFT technology

2232-490: The Athabasca oil sands bitumen recovery operations. Its objective is to separate mineral solids and water from the bitumen froth. The bitumen froth is diluted with naphthenic or paraffinic solvents to lower its viscosity to facilitate the separation. Bitumen froth treatment is the "removal of inorganics (mineral particles and water droplets) from a bitumen organic solvent solution." The solvent to bitumen ratio (S/B) changes

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2304-634: The Empire Oil Company for an equivalent amount in Standard Oil. After returning to the United States, Frasch perfected his desulphurization strategy, and Standard Oil held a monopoly on the process until 1905. Despite rising revenue and growth in the 1890s, Imperial Oil faced continuing challenges in its markets, primarily from Standard Oil, which operated a series of subsidiary companies across Canada. Although Imperial dominated

2376-444: The Kearl open-pit mine . They argued that a full environmental review must take place before the federal government decides whether the project should proceed. After a joint federal-provincial panel reviewed and upheld the original decision, a water permit was reinstated in 2008, pending approval from Imperial's board of directors. Delayed again in response to the 2008 fall in oil prices, Imperial Oil decided in May 2009 to proceed with

2448-556: The Kearl Oil Sands Project from the Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB). Prior to 2013, Kearl Oil Sands Project was regulated by the now defunct, ERCB—replaced in 2013 by the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) by then Conservative Premier Allison Redford . The AER—which was fully funded by the industry—became the single regulator in the province, integrating environmental regulation with economic development in all provincial energy projects. The first AER chair

2520-517: The Kearl project in 1997. In 2003, Imperial Oil Ltd. announced plans for a proposed new megaproject at Kearl Lake 60 kilometres (37 mi) north of Fort McMurray , in partnership with its parent company, Exxon. Ralph Klein was then premier of Alberta, and against the backdrop of the invasion of Iraq in March, 2003, there was a boom in megaproject construction. In 2003, other oil companies were also involved in or considering expansion projects in

2592-585: The Paraffinic Solvent Froth Treatment (PSFT) was developed with research contributed by CanmetENERGY. Syncrude patented the process in 1994 and "made the use rights available to all members of an oil sands Froth Treatment consortium, allowing the process to be implemented at other oil sands operations." PFT reduces the "viscosity of the bitumen, enabling water and solids removal by gravity separation". It also precipitates asphaltenes , which bind with water and solids" resulting in

2664-585: The Port of Vancouver in Washington, through Idaho, then Lolo Pass, through Montana's secondary highways on their way to Kearl Oil Sands Project in northern Alberta. The KMTP involved constructing 75 roadway turnouts, bridge reinforcement, and relocating traffic signals and overhead wires along the 480 kilometres (300 mi) route. In order to transport the modules, Class 8 Tractors hauled 16 feet (4.9 m) wide Mammoet -built Hydraulic Platform Trailers, from

2736-531: The SepCell—recovers 90% of the bitumen. During this process bitumen froth is produced. The froth is highly aerated—full of air bubble—and requires deaeration before it can be pumped to a Froth Storage Tank. The second stage is the froth treatment. The quality of bitumen froth prior to the frothing treatment—a solvent-based gravity separation treatment—is "too low to be processed by an upgrader or refinery." The water-based gravity separation alone cannot remove

2808-475: The Victor works was struck by lightning and burned to the ground, and under Englehart's direction, the company concentrated its refining efforts at Petrolia. In 1884, Imperial Oil purchased the exclusive use of Herman Frasch 's fractional distillation patent, which was more efficient at separating crude oil into usable products. Imperial initially offered Frasch $ 10,000 and Imperial Oil stock, but he persuaded

2880-605: The Western Canadian market, the company could not establish a strong foothold in the Maritimes or Quebec as Standard supplied these regions through long-term contracts with local companies. While the Conservative Party 's National Policy had stopped Standard Oil from fully entering the Canadian market, the economic policy came under attack by Standard Oil lobbyists and Canadian consumers, who asked for

2952-618: The company to offer him a salary that matched Fitzgerald's and a seat on the Board of Directors. Frasch had taken the position primarily to supervise the installation of his refining method at the Silver Star refinery and resigned in February 1885 once the work was complete. Frasch then joined John Minhinnick in forming a separate venture called the Empire Oil Company. The pair purchased an idle refinery in London , and Frasch began experimenting on

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3024-545: The company to the Colonial Development Corporation , a British company. After three years, the deal collapsed, and the Board of Directors instead chose to sell the company to Standard Oil. The agreement specified that Standard Oil would acquire 75% of Imperial Oil's shares, Imperial Oil would acquire all of Standard Oil's Canadian subsidiary companies, Imperial's capitalization would be increased to $ 1 million, and Imperial shareholders would receive

3096-422: The destabilization of the emulsified water droplets. During the integrated froth treatment, a light hydrocarbon —either a naphthenic or paraffinic solvent—is added to the froth to reduce the bitumen's viscosity and to remove the fine inorganic particles with a more "effective gravity separation". A 2013, American Chemical Society (ACS) described bitumen froth treatment as an "integrated process step in

3168-415: The dynamics of the water-in-diluted bitumen— dilbit —emulsions. By 2006, there were two commercialized froth treatment processes in the province of Alberta. At that time, they were called the "Syncrude Process," which involved "dilution with an aromatic solvent followed by centrifugation" and the "Albian Process," which involved "dilution with a paraffinic solvent followed by gravity settling." Following

3240-614: The early 1880s. The discovery of new oil fields in Pennsylvania and New York drove down the price of oil, and the creation of the Standard Oil Trust resulted in an increase of American oil imports into Canada. In a move to boost kerosene prices, Imperial closed down ten of the twelve refineries it had acquired through the merger, leaving only the Silver Star refinery in Petrolia and the Victor works in London. In 1883,

3312-505: The estimated cost of the project was CA$ 7 billion. The first stage of development as described in 2009, involved capital spending of about CA$ 8 billion, with the final estimate being highly dependent on the final upgrading option selected. By 2010, the cost of the Kearl Oil Sands Project was more than CA$ 8 billion. By February 2013, Imperial said that the Kearl's first phase would cost CA$ 12.9 billion, 2 billion more than its previous estimate of 10.9 billion dollars, and 61% more than

3384-634: The extraction process, used by oil sands operators in commercial operations, is a modified Clark hot water extraction (CHWE) process which was developed by Karl Adolf Clark 's (1888–1966) in the 1920s. According to a 2017 Oil Sands Magazine article, after bitumen froth has been separated using the first stage of the bitumen recovery process—water-based gravity separation—the solution contains on average "60% bitumen, 30% water and 10% fine solids." The gravity separation vessel—the Primary Separation Cell (PSC), Primary Separation Vessel (PSV) or

3456-697: The federal government that "limited the volume and cost for energy firms to reduce emissions". In 2012, Canada withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol. The Pembina Institute , Sierra Club of Canada , the Toxics Watch Society of Alberta and the Prairie Acid Rain Coalition launched legal action in Edmonton to challenge the 2006 regulatory approval of the project. They claimed that the joint federal-Alberta regulatory panel failed to do its job when it gave conditional approval to

3528-468: The frothing process, the bitumen may require more upgrading before it can be transported through pipelines. Processors that use the newer technology of Paraffinic Solvent Froth Treatment (PSFT), which has been in commercial use since 2002, no longer require this stage of upgrading, which represents a significant reduction in the cost of processing. The original—and more conventional—naphthenic froth treatment (NFT), does require an ungrader. In order to produce

3600-504: The frothing technique " instead of building an upgrader to process raw bitumen." There are a number of research projects on improving and evaluating innovations in froth treatment. The industry-funded and provincial government mandated, Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) regulates bitumen mining in the province. The AER's Directive 082: Operating Criteria - Resource Recovery Requirements for Oil Sands Mine and Processing Plants sets minimum recovery rates for all oil sands operations in

3672-524: The journal, Chemosphere , which has been cited over 100 times, the authors said that naphthenic acids are present in Athabasca oil sands (AOL) tailings pond water (TPW) at an estimated concentration of 81 mg/L., which is too low a level for TPW to be considered a viable source for commercial recovery. They studied a solvent-based laboratory bench procedure developed to "efficiently extract naphthenic acids from bulk volumes of Athabasca oil sands tailings pond water (TPW)." The same authors had published

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3744-575: The late early 1990s Imperial Oil had acquired retail operations from Texaco 's Canadian unit Texaco Canada Incorporated. With ExxonMobil having majority ownership, Imperial Oil licences its parent company's brands, including the Esso and Mobil names for service stations, and the Speedpass electronic payment system. Until 2018, Imperial Oil was a member of the rewards program Aeroplan . On March 13, 2018, Loblaw Companies announced that it had reached

3816-548: The oft-cited 2001 article in the Society of Toxicology 's Toxicological Sciences , in which they stated that "naphthenic acids are the most significant environmental contaminants resulting from petroleum extraction from oil sands deposits." They found that "under worst-case exposure conditions, acute toxicity is unlikely in wild mammals exposed to naphthenic acids" in [Athabasca oil sands] (AOS) tailings pond water, "but repeated exposure may have adverse health effects." In 1990,

3888-502: The oil market. Englehart aimed to emulate John D. Rockefeller and merge the entire Canadian oil industry into one conglomerate . Although the majority of Ontario's top oil producers agreed to join in the enterprise, exceptions included John Henry Fairbank , who was then Canada's largest oil producer, and James Miller Williams , founder of the Canadian Oil Company. Englehart and the refiners established Imperial Oil as

3960-534: The oil sands product, such as Lloydminster heavy oil, which is a component in the Western Canadian Select (WCS). The original and conventional froth treatment uses a solvent naphtha with the addition of chemicals to destabilize the emulsion. For thirty years, from the 1970s to the early 2000s, the only technology available in the oils sands industry for bitumen recovery, was Naphthenic Froth Treatment (NFT). In an article published in 2002 in

4032-446: The oil sands, including Husky , Shell , Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. , Nexen Inc . and Encana . Kearl's mining area includes about 4.6 billion barrels (730 × 10 ^  m) of bitumen resources. It is anticipated that it will take four decades to recover all the bitumen. When ExxonMobil proposed the Kearl project in 1997, estimated recoverable bitumen resources were 1.2 to 1.4 billion barrels (220 × 10 ^  m). In 2010,

4104-475: The original estimate of 8 billion. The initial public disclosure for the Kearl Oil Sands Project was made in 1997 by ExxonMobil Canada, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil. In November 2003, Imperial Oil submitted the updated project disclosure. Engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) activities were carried out between 2009 and 2012. The first production from the field occurred in April. ExxonMobil initially proposed

4176-518: The outsourcing of labor. On April 15, 2020, an outbreak of COVID-19 was linked to Kearl by the provincial government, and by April 20, at least twenty cases were attributed to the site by Alberta Health Services . On April 18, BC's Interior Health and the Saskatchewan Health Authority (in particular, residents of northwest Saskatchewan) issued advisories of self-isolation for staff returning from interprovincial travel to

4248-632: The project, taking advantage of the local economy to cut costs. On February 6th, 2023, the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) issued an Environmental Protection Order under the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act in response to two incidents, including a seepage event reported on May 19, 2022 and an overflow event on February 4, 2023. In March 2023, Imperial Oil received a Fisheries Act direction from Environment and Climate change Canada to contain seepage from

4320-449: The project. ExxonMobil Corporation Imperial Oil Limited , with its headquarters in Calgary , Alberta is one of the largest integrated oil companies in Canada. ExxonMobil is one of the largest companies in the world in terms of oil production. In 2003, similar projects—which like the one proposed at Kearl included an upgrader capable of turning bitumen into synthetic crude oil —were estimated to cost over CA$ 5 billion. By 2007,

4392-465: The refined product. By this time, Standard Oil had also become interested in the desulphurization process after moving production to oil fields in Ohio that had a similar sulphur content to Lambton County. In 1886, Standard Oil persuaded Frasch to return to the United States and join their company by offering "a salary higher than that of any other scientist in the country" and an exchange of his shares in

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4464-401: The refining capacity in Canada. Fitzgerald and Englehart were the two largest stakeholders in the company and were named the president and vice president, respectively. Imperial Oil's charter noted that its goal was to "find, produce, refine and distribute petroleum and its products throughout Canada." Despite its early successes, Imperial Oil struggled to make a profit and issue dividends in

4536-422: The region and their close contacts. Imperial Oil Imperial Oil Limited ( French : Compagnie Pétrolière Impériale Ltée ) is a Canadian petroleum company. It is Canada's second-largest integrated oil company. It is majority-owned by American oil company ExxonMobil , with a 69.6% ownership stake in the company. It is a producer of crude oil , diluted bitumen , and natural gas . Imperial Oil

4608-460: The remaining contaminants, which are 10 to 15% solids and up to 40% water. Froth treatments use a light hydrocarbon to lower the viscosity of the bitumen, releasing the fine particles and water, resulting in a cleaner diluted bitumen stream. The micrometer-sized inorganic mineral contaminants in the bitumen froth, after the first stage of processing, consist of fine silt and clay and the "water-in-oil emulsion droplets." These droplets, formed during

4680-625: The viscosity of bitumen changes with heat and cold. It is like molasses when warm, and will freeze when cold. Bitumen as a hydrocarbon, is considered to be a valuable energy resource. The more bitumen in an oil sands deposit, the more valuable it is. If a deposit contains less than 6% of bitumen it is not worth mining. The oil sands deposit has to have at least 18% of bitumen has to be economically viable. Bitumen production in 2004 included six inter-related and integrated processes or units—mining, utilities, extraction, froth treatment, water management, oil sands tailings ponds , and upgrading, according to

4752-408: The water-based bitumen extraction process, are the most challenging to remove. These emulsified water droplets are further stabilized by the micro-sized particles of quartz sand. Water-in-oil emulsions are "easy to destabilize" when fine mineral particles are removed. During an effective froth treatment removal process, the fine—micro sized—mineral particles form larger aggregates which facilitates

4824-496: The western part of Lease 6 and the northwestern part of Lease 87 (Imperial Oil, ExxonMobil 2009–07). Lease 36 and 31A, in which ExxonMobil Canada holds 100% of the mining rights. In January 2013, Alberta Federation of Labour president, Gil McGowan, raised concerns that the decision to pipe diluted bitumen south for upgrading instead of including an upgrader as had been announced previously, would result in fewer jobs in Alberta at

4896-1818: Was also involved in film production, providing funding for independent documentary films. Glenbow Museum in Calgary holds a large collection of Imperial Oil's film inventory. Frederick A. Fitzgerald, 1880–1889 Frank Q. Barstow, 1889–1908 Horace Chamberlain, 1908–1911 Walter C. Teagle , 1914–1918 William J. Hanna , 1918–1919 Charles O. Stillman, 1919–1933 G. Harrison Smith, 1933–1944 Richard V. LeSueur , 1944–1945 Henry H. Hewetson, 1945–1949 George L. Stewart, 1949–1953 John R. White, 1953–1960 William O. Twaits , 1960–1970 John A. Armstrong , 1970–1979 James R. Livingstone, 1979–1982 Arden R. Haynes , 1982–1988 Robert B. Peterson, 1988–1992 Ronald A. Brenneman , 1992–1994 Robert B. Peterson, 1994–2001 Timothy J. Hearn, 2001–2007 Bruce H. March, 2007–2013 Richard M. Kruger , 2013–2019 Bradley W. Corson, 2019– Frederick A. Fitzgerald, 1889–1905 G. Harrison Smith, 1944–1945 Richard V. LeSueur , 1945 Frank W. Pierce, 1945–1947 George L. Stewart, 1947–1949 Henry H. Hewetson, 1949–1950 George L. Stewart, 1953–1955 John R. White, 1960–19?? William O. Twaits , 1970–1974 John A. Armstrong , 1974–1981 Donald K. McIvor, 1981–1985 Arden R. Haynes , 1985–1992 Robert B. Peterson, 1992–2002 Timothy J. Hearn, 2002–2008 Bruce H. March, 2008–2013 Richard M. Kruger , 2013–2019 Bradley W. Corson, 2019– Imperial Oil supplied more than 2,000 service stations as of October 2020, all of which were owned by third parties. It sold its remaining 497 stations in 2016 to retailers such as Alimentation Couche-Tard (mostly Ontario and Quebec), 7-Eleven (mostly Alberta and British Columbia ), Parkland , Harnois (Quebec) and Wilson Fuel ( Atlantic Canada ). In

4968-1003: Was based in Toronto , Ontario , until 2005. Most of Imperial's production is from its natural resource holdings in the Alberta oil sands and the Norman Wells oil field in the Northwest Territories . Imperial Oil was ranked 34th in the Arctic Environmental Responsibility Index (AERI) for 2021 out of 120 mining, oil, and gas corporations that extract resources north of the Arctic Circle . In April 1880, Jacob Lewis Englehart and 16 prominent oil refiners in London, Ontario , and Petrolia, Ontario , formed Imperial Oil in response to Standard Oil 's growing dominance of

5040-640: Was completed mid-2013. It used a froth treatment technology, producing blended bitumen which was transported to the Edmonton area by Enbridge 's pipeline system. Diluent was provided from Edmonton through the Inter Pipeline-owned 454 kilometres (282 mi) long, 12 inches (300 mm) diameter pipeline supplying the Athabasca Oil Sands Project . The Kearl oil sands facilities would be connected with this pipeline by

5112-453: Was producing 40,000-barrel-per-day (6,400 m/d) and expected to reach 100,000-barrel-per-day (16,000 m/d) in the summer of 2013. By 2013, Imperial/Exxon estimated that Kearl production would reach 345,000 barrels per day (54,900 m/d) by 2020. Kearl's annual average was 178,000 barrels per day (28,300 m/d) in 2017. In 2021, full-year annual production at Kearl reached a record of 263,000 barrels per day (41,800 m/d) and

5184-563: Was the founding president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP). In 2003, Imperial's executive K.C. Williams expressed concerns about the cost of maintaining compliance with environmental laws after the revision of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012, however many other industry executives, including Gwyn Morgan , "one of the oil patch's most vocal Kyoto opponents", were less concerned due to laws passed by

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