Imperial Oil News

U.S. oil major Exxon Mobil Corp. has withdrawn its environmental assessment application for a $25-billion LNG export facility on the B.C. coast it proposed in 2015. No reasons given for withdrawing from environmental review process.“After careful review, ExxonMobil Canada and Imperial Oil Resources have withdrawn the WCC LNG project from the B.C. Environmental Assessment process,” a notice on WCC LNG website says. It also says that its websie will only be available until the end of 2018.WCC LNG is a proposed project to develop and operate a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility at Tuck Inlet in Prince Rupert, British Columbia.According to a Reuters report…

US President Barack Obama has permanently banned offshore oil and gas drilling in the "vast majority" of US-owned northern waters. Vowing that his successor won’t be able to reverse his actions, President Obama on Tuesday used executive authority to permanently ban new offshore drilling in federally owned waters off the Atlantic coast and in the Arctic Ocean. The majority of the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas and the entirety of the Canadian Arctic are now off limits for future offshore oil and gas leasing. According to ADN, President Obama's Dec. Much of the policy and planning the U.S. and Alaska have been working toward in the Arctic was unwoven with this action. Obama designated areas in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans as "indefinitely off limits" to future leasing.

U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday slammed an agreement made with Canada to ban offshore Arctic drilling, saying Ottawa's plan to review its ban every five years gives Canada a leg up on energy exploration. U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday announced a ban on new oil and gas drilling federal waters in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, while Canada instituted a similar ban in its Arctic waters. Unlike the United States, where the ban is indefinite, Canada said it will review its restrictions every five years.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday banned new oil and gas drilling in federal waters in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, in a push to leave his stamp on the environment before Republican Donald Trump takes office next month. Obama used a 1950s-era law called the Outer Continental Shelf Act that allows presidents to limit areas from mineral leasing and drilling. Environmental groups said that meant Trump's incoming administration would have to go court if it sought to reverse the move.

Canada's offshore Arctic drilling rules could "stifle" development since they do not provide incentives for companies to proceed with production after discovering oil, the government was told in a newly-released internal briefing note. The advice was prepared for the government's point man on the issue, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Minister Bernard Valcourt, before Imperial Oil Ltd lobbied him privately in June, seeking concessions on existing legislation. The right-leaning Conservative government said in July it would review the legislation, known as the Canada Petroleum Resources Act. To drill in the Canadian Arctic, companies need an exploratory licence, awarded with a fixed term.

The operator of Canada's largest synthetic crude project said on Saturday it is investigating the causes of an early morning fire at an upgrading plant. Firefighters extinguished the blaze, at Syncrude Canada's Mildred Lake upgrading complex in northern Alberta, and no one was injured, said company spokesman Will Gibson in a phone interview. The fire broke out a few hours after the province's energy regulator announced it was shutting in 95 pipelines operated by Nexen, one of the partners in the project, because of safety issues identified following a large oil-related spill in July. But he said it was too soon to know how production would be affected.

Alberta's energy regulator said on Saturday it is investigating reports that about 30 blue herons have died at a Syncrude Canada oil sands mine site in the northern part of the Canadian province. The Alberta Energy Regulator said it sent investigators to the Syncrude Canada Mildred Lake site, which is about 40 km (25 miles) north of Fort McMurray. In 2010, Syncrude was fined C$3 million ($2.29 million) for negligence in the 2008 deaths of 1,600 ducks in a toxic waste pond, a case that fueled international concern about the environmental impact of developing Canada's oil sands. Syncrude's partners include Canadian Oil Sands Ltd, Imperial Oil Ltd, Suncor Energy Inc, Sinopec , CNOOC Ltd's Nexen, Japan's Mocal Energy and Murphy Oil Co.

Imperial Oil Ltd said on Friday it and partners Exxon Mobil Corp  and BP Plc need more time before they can drill an exploratory well in Canadian Arctic waters and are seeking an extension to their exploration license in the region. Pius Rolheiser, a spokesman for Imperial, said the license for the group's exploration parcel in the Beaufort Sea, a section of the Arctic Ocean, expires in 2020. He said the group is asking the Canadian government for a seven-year extension so it can complete the requirements of the regulatory process and have adequate time to make a decision on how, or when, it will drill a well in the region. "There's a significant amount of work between where we are today and where we would need to be if we were to drill a well by 2020," Rolheiser said.

As Imperial Oil, as senior partner in the northern venture with ExxonMobil and BP, told Canada’s National Energy Board (NEB) that the exploration program has been deferred, the plan to revive arctic gas and oil drilling in deep Canadian waters of the Beaufort Sea ground to a halt. The slow pace of regulatory review has left too little time to finish the approval process and does the work before the group's drilling leases expire, Imperial said in a filing at the board. The partners – Calgary-based Imperial, Exxon Mobil and BP – have asked Canadian officials for seven-year extensions of Beaufort Sea exploration licenses that are currently scheduled to expire in 2020, reported Reuters.

Imperial Oil Ltd said on Friday it is deferring plans to drill an exploratory well in the Beaufort Sea in Canada's Arctic as it seeks an extension to the length of its exploration license in the region.   Pius Rolheiser, a spokesman for the company, said the license, which it shares with Exxon Mobil Corp and BP Plc, expires in 2020 and it is asking the Canadian government for a nine-year extension so it can complete the regulatory process and have adequate time to make a decision on how or when it will drill a well in the region.     (Reporting by Scott Haggett; Editing by Tom Brown)

U.S. energy giant Exxon Mobil Corp could spend up to $25 billion on a British Columbia LNG terminal project to export liquefied natural gas. Exxon counts on its global expertise to make the Canadian project viable, says a report in the Globe and Mail. Malaysia’s state-owned Petronas is widely viewed as the front-runner among 18 entrants in the race to export LNG from the West Coast. Exxon is positioning itself to make up ground on Petronas. But, says the newspaper, Petronas decided last month to delay its decision on whether to forge ahead with its Pacific NorthWest LNG joint venture near Prince Rupert, citing the need to decrease anticipated construction costs, overcome environmental hurdles and consult further with First Nations.

Imperial Oil Ltd said on Tuesday it has completed a two-week major maintenance turnaround at its 110,000 barrel per day Kearl oil sands mine in northern Alberta. Imperial 69.6 percent owned by Exxon Mobil Corp said work was carried out over the last two weeks of September and involved maintenance on the ore preparation plant and other systems. (Reporting by Scott Haggett; Editing by David Gregorio)

Patrick T. Mulva, vice president and controller of Exxon Mobil Corporation has announced his intention to retire on Sept. 1, 2014, after more than 38 years of service. Mulva, 63, joined Exxon Company U.S.A. in 1976 as a financial analyst at the company’s refinery in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and went on to hold a variety of financial positions of increasing responsibility in the upstream and downstream operations. After managing short-range planning for the U.S. downstream business, he was appointed assistant controller for Exxon Company International in 1990. The following year, Mulva was named finance director of the Exxon companies in Malaysia. He returned to Exxon Company U.S.A. in 1993 as upstream controller and later became the company’s assistant controller.

City councilors in South Portland, Maine, voted late Monday night to ban the loading of crude oil onto tankers along its waterfront, throwing up yet another roadblock to the export of Canadian oil sands crude and setting up a showdown with industry which called the process illegal. The city of 25,000, known for its scenic lighthouses and sweeping views of the island-speckled waters of Casco Bay, is also the east coast's second largest oil port, located at the southern terminus of the Portland-Montreal Pipeline, which currently flows north to Canada.

Norway wants to let oil and gas companies drill in Arctic seas that were frozen as recently as the 1980s even though some climate experts say it is too early to trust global warming to keep the ice away. Russia is also showing new interest in the Arctic despite high costs in a region where governments are struggling to set safety rules after BP's 2010 blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst offshore spill in U.S. history. Many companies, including ConocoPhillips and Idemitsu…

Imperial Oil Ltd said on Thursday it is not yet close to deciding on whether it will go ahead with a Canadian liquefied natural gas export plant it is exploring with its majority owner Exxon Mobil Corp. Speaking to reporters following the company's annual meeting, Rich Kruger, chief executive officer of Canada's No.2 integrated oil company, said Imperial is laying groundwork for a potential project that would send LNG to Asian markets but, despite having an export license in hand, it is not yet ready to say if or when the project will proceed. "What you're seeing from us ...

ExxonMobil Marine Fuels (EMMF) and Imperial Oil have commissioned a new double-hull barge to complement existing marine fuels services at Canada's port of Vancouver. The state-of-the art ITB Provider, owned by established Vancouver operator Island Tug & Barge, has a fuel capacity of 2,200 tonnes, and can deliver HFO/IFO and MGO simultaneously at a rate of up to 500 tonnes per hour. It will complement the ITB2, which is already refuelling vessels at Vancouver, and the Imperial Oil barge Imperial Nootka, which is supplying marine lubricants and smaller MGO deliveries. Imperial Oil is the only supplier in the Port of Vancouver with bunker storage facilities. network.

PanCanadian Petroleum Ltd., Canada's No. 2 oil company, could soon be on track to develop an East Coast offshore gas project to rival the huge Sable Island project, its chief executive said. PanCanadian, the oil and gas arm of conglomerate Canadian Pacific Ltd., plans to drill two appraisal wells this year near its recent Deep Panuke gas discoveries, made at the site of the exhausted Copan oil project off Nova Scotia. The wells will give the company the geological data it needs to decide whether to pursue more drilling or full development, PanCanadian CEO David Tuer said. Two recent wells drilled into the gas formation beneath the old oil reservoir tested at more than 50 million cubic feet a day each.

In mid-August, Chevron Canada will drill the first exploratory well in the Orphan Basin. According to industry experts, the exploration of the Orphan Basin could mean the beginning of a new and potentially lucrative phase of Newfoundland and Labrador’s offshore oil industry. The basin is in an area that has not been explored before, where the weather is harsh and the water is deep. However, the potential is massive — the Orphan Basin could hold more oil than the Jeanne D'Arc Basin on the Grand Banks, which is home to the Hibernia field, the Terra Nova field, as well as the White Rose and Hebron projects. However, some caution that it's too soon to know exactly what the Orphan Basin may hold.