Ottawa Restores Imperial Oil's Oil Sands Approvals
Date: 09-Jun-08
Country: CANADA
Author: Jeffrey Jones
The federal department gave Imperial, Canada's biggest oil producer and refiner, a new permit Friday to disturb fish habitat at the proposed northern Alberta mining site, DFO spokesman Phil Jenkins said.
The company, which aims to develop the 300,000 barrel a day project along with US oil major Exxon Mobil Corp, said it can now resume site preparation at Kearl, located north of the oil sands hub of Fort McMurray, Alberta.
The partners' final go-ahead decisions are expected later this year or early next, Imperial spokesman Gordon Wong said.
The reissue of the permit comes after the federal cabinet gave the project the green light last month. Environmentalists were angered to hear that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cabinet quietly okayed the development weeks earlier.
The Kearl project faced the prospect of lengthy delays after a federal judge in March ordered the joint regulatory review panel, which approved the project last year, to explain its conclusion that Imperial had adequately dealt with the issue of limiting greenhouse gas emissions.
That prompted the fisheries ministry to rescind its permit. The panel explained its approval in early May.
"In issuing this authorization, DFO took into consideration not only the joint review panel's report, including mitigation measures and a follow-up program that need to be implemented," Jenkins wrote in an e-mail.
"It also took into account a fish habitat compensation plan that had been completed by Imperial Oil to the satisfaction of DFO officials."
The Kearl development is one of about C$100 billion in projects on the books or under construction to exploit the oil sands deposits of Alberta, which represent the largest oil reserves outside the Middle East.
The project had been expected to start production in 2011. Wong said Imperial will issue a new cost estimate and schedule after the partners formally sanction the development.
Imperial shares rose C$1.29, or 2 percent, to C$60.93 on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Exxon owns 69.6 percent of Imperial.
(US$1=$1.02 Canadian)
(Editing by Rob Wilson)