The highlight of Imperial Oil’s second quarter conference call on July 31 was the CEO touting the company’s potential to double its operated production if there is a supportive fiscal and regulatory framework. Operationally, weaker than planned production in the first half of of the year caused Imperial to guide towards the lower end of its 2026 guidance range.
Regarding the recently announced Memorandum Of Understanding between the Oil Sands Alliance and the federal and Alberta governments, CEO John Whelan noted on the call that “with a supportive fiscal and regulatory framework, Imperial has the potential to double our gross operated upstream production over time with the development of our high-quality oil sands leases”, and specifically referred to Imperial’s insitu lease areas at Aspen, Clark Creek, and Corner, each of which it sees potential for up to 150 Mb/d of production (see image below for lease locations). Last year Imperial noted that it anticipated building out these projects in the 2030's and 2040's. Imperial's gross operated production averaged about 440 MBoe/d last year, almost entirely from oil sands.
Imperial envisions using solvents, not just steam, to recover bitumen at these three lease areas. To that end, a joint venture pilot project with Suncor at Imperial’s Aspen lease area should start up in 2027, utilizing Imperial’s “Enhanced Bitumen Recovery Technology” (EBRT) which injects vaporized diluent solvent along with much smaller amounts of steam.
Q2 upstream production of 414 MBoe/d was down 13 Mboe/d year-over-year, impacted by planned turnarounds, extreme wet weather in early June, and minor unplanned interruptions. Given unplanned events in the first half of the year that contributed to upstream production averaging 417 MBoe/d, 2026 upstream production is now expected to be towards the lower end of the 441-460 MBoe/d range.
Q2 refinery utilization was only 76%, due to a major planned turnaround at the Strathcona refinery. 2026 refinery throughput guidance was reduced by 25 Mb/d, to a range of 370-380 Mb/d, due to unplanned downtime in the first seven months of the year, and rail logistics challenges at the Strathcona, AB refinery that are temporarily limiting growth of renewable diesel production.
Source: Imperial Oil
