ExxonMobil Canada is breathing new life into the long dormant Kearl Oil Sands Project. The company is studying options and hopes to have corporate approval to restart engineering on the project later this year. Originally a Mobil Oil Canada project, the company put the project on hold due to economic issues and the pending merger with Exxon in 1999.
The Kearl Oil Sands project will involve an open pit mining and extraction operation to produce 150,000-200,000 barrels a day of crude bitumen. The crude bitumen will be sent to a planned grassroot upgrader for further processing. The Kearl Oil Sands project is located at lease #36, 70 kilometers north of Fort McMurray, Alberta. ExxonMobil has a 100-percent working interest in this 5,200-hectare lease and has held rights to this lease for the past 40 years. ExxonMobil Canada believes the reserves on the Kearl Oil Sands lease would sustain between 160,000 – 200,000 barrels per day of bitumen production for approximately 30 years, depending on the technology and upgrading technologies used to extract the bitumen from the ground.
