Imperial has initiated a controlled ramp-down at its Kearl oil sands operation in Alberta, Canada, due to an ongoing outage on a third-party diluent pipeline related to a release that was detected on August 29. All production at the operation has ceased, but the facilities remain ready to ramp up to full production rates once the diluent pipeline is back in service and diluent supply is restored, according to Imperial.
Imperial said the shutdown will be conducted in a safe and controlled manner and it is pursuing a number of steps to try to mitigate the operational impacts. The impact of the outage and a timeline for restart is unknown at this time.
Kearl has an estimated 4.6 billion barrels of recoverable bitumen resource and is owned by Imperial (71%) and ExxonMobil Canada (29%).