Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and Imperial Oil Ltd. (IMO.TO) announced the start-up of the initial development of the Kearl oil sands project, located about 75 kilometres northeast of Fort McMurray, Alberta. The project's long-term production will access 4.6 billion barrels of resource over 40 years.
The Kearl Oil Sands Project is jointly owned between Imperial Oil as operator with 71 percent and ExxonMobil Canada with 29 percent.
Imperial Oil stated that production of mined diluted bitumen from the first of three froth treatment trains has commenced, with start-up of two additional bitumen froth trains to proceed in sequence as planned, bringing production from the initial development to an expected 110,000 barrels per day later in 2013.
In addition, an expansion phase at Kearl will add another 110,000 barrels per day by late 2015 and future debottlenecking will increase output to reach the regulatory capacity of 345,000 barrels per day by about 2020.
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