Imperial Oil Limited Awards Contracts, Resubmits Application for $1.5 Billion Nabiye Oil Sands Project

---

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Imperial Oil Limited (TSX:IMO) (Calgary, Alberta) has resurrected its 30,000-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) Nabiye oil sands project, which has been on the shelf for quite a while. Imperial Oil also has resubmitted permitting, in a heavily amended version of the project for which Imperial Oil was approved several years ago.

The Nabiye project is an expansion of Imperial Oil's Cold Lake thermal complex. Nabiye, which is 3 kilometers east of May Lake, will be the phase 14-16 expansion to Canada's oldest thermal oil sands recovery project in Alberta, having begun production back in the 1960's with a pilot plant, and then implementing 13 phases of expansion which, over the years, have brought the total heavy oil production at the Cold Lake complex to 150,000 BBL/d. The heavy crude is recovered utilizing Cyclic Steam Stimulation (CSS), where steam is injected into the ground and changes the viscosity of the oil sands throughout the pay zone; it is stopped while the bitumen is pumped out, after which the cycle begins all over again with steam injection.

The newly revised Nabiye project will include a field development of nine well pads, each of which will have 16 vertical and eight horizontal wells. Imperial Oil plans to construct a natural gas-fired, 170-megawatt cogeneration plant, along with significant sulfur recovery facilities to improve the efficiencies of the Nabiye plant. The cogen will be based on two GE MS7001EA turbine generator units, with heat recovery steam generators and a steam turbine. The new cogen will supply power and steam to the Nabiye plant and the existing Mahihkan plant through a new 25-kilovolt (kV) transmission line, and the balance of the unused electric power will be sold to the grid through a new 13-kilometer, 144-kV transmission line.

Imperial Oil has awarded the front-end engineering and design (FEED) contract for the Nabiye processing plant, the cogen and the sulfur recovery facilities to Jacobs Canada Incorporated (Calgary). The FEED contract for the production field, the off-sites, and the well pads was awarded to Worley Parsons (Calgary). Imperial Oil expects to begin work on access roads and early site work as early as the spring of 2010. Construction on the $1.5 billion Nabiye project is expect to begin in earnest some time in 2011, with a completion and in-service date slated for sometime in late 2014 or early 2015.

View Project Report - 56000511 56001347 56001346

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy related markets. For more than 26 years, Industrial Info has provided plant and project spending opportunity databases, market forecasts, high resolution maps, and daily industry news.