Kearl Oil Sands Project Approved to Begin Major Construction

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Imperial Oil Limited (TSX:IMO) (Calgary, Alberta) recently announced that its board of directors has approved major construction for Phase I of the grassroot Kearl oil sands project. Located 70 kilometers northeast of Fort McMurray, Alberta, the $8 billion (U.S. $7.3 billion) project is a joint-venture integrated oil sands surface mining, processing and synthetic crude production operation between Imperial Oil and ExxonMobil Canada (Calgary), a subsidiary of ExxonMobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) (Irving, Texas).

The company said site preparation work, engineering and procurement for long-lead items have been under way. The engineering, procurement and construction management for Phase I have been awarded to a joint venture between AMEC (Calgary) and Fluor Canada Limited (Calgary), a subsidiary of Fluor Corporation (NYSE:FLR) (Irving). The joint venture acquired the services of Horton CBI Limited (Calgary) and Kiewit Energy Canada Corporation (Calgary) to assist with the construction of the site infrastructure.

Industrial Info has been tracking the progression of the Kearl oil sands project since February 1999. Imperial plans to develop the Kearl oil sands mining and bitumen extraction project in three stages, starting with an initial 110,000 barrels per day (BBL/d) of synthetic crude oil, mine train and possible subsequent expansions to about 300,000 BBL/d. The project's initial phase does not include an on-site bitumen upgrading plant. The first mine train is scheduled to start up by the end of 2012, with possible second and third mine trains starting up in 2015 and 2018, respectively.

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