February 3, 2025 [Reuters]- Canadian oil producer Imperial Oil posted a fall in fourth-quarter profit on Friday, after lower crude prices offset the impact of higher production and stronger refinery-capacity utilization.
Benchmark crude prices fell 3% in 2024, dragged lower by economic weakness in major consumer China, sluggish post-pandemic demand recovery and as a surge in output from the U.S. and other non-OPEC nations added to a surplus of supply.
Shares of Imperial Oil were down 3.6% at C$99.71.
The company still raised its quarterly dividend by 20% to 72 Canadian cents per share.
Canadian producers such as Imperial have benefited from the start-up of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion last year.
The link has nearly tripled the flow of oil to Canada’s Pacific Coast from landlocked Alberta, boosted the price of Canadian crude and opened up market access to refineries in Asia and the U.S. West Coast.
Imperial’s upstream production for the October-December quarter was 460,000 gross barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), compared with 452,000 gross boepd during the same period last year.
The company said production from its Kearl oilsands site hit an all-time high in 2024, at 281,000 barrels per day.
Total throughput volumes, or the amount of crude processed, were up nearly 1% at 411,000 barrels per day (bpd). Refinery utilization stood at 95%, compared with 94% last year.
The Calgary, Alberta-based company said its net income fell to C$1.23 billion ($849.39 million), or C$2.37 per share, in the quarter ended Dec. 31, from C$1.37 billion, or C$2.47 per share, last year.
As the Canadian energy sector braces for U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed 25% tariff on Canadian imports, CEO Brad Corson told a conference call he hoped “diplomacy will prevail and we will end up with no tariffs, no restrictions on energy flow”.
Canada has been the biggest source of U.S. oil imports for over two decades and supplied more than half of all crude imports into the country in 2023, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Imperial Oil is majority owned by U.S. oil and gas major Exxon Mobil, which separately posted a fall in fourth-quarter profit earlier on Friday.
Imperial is also a member of the Pathways Alliance, a group of six Canadian oilsands companies that propose a C$16.5-billion carbon capture and storage project to cut emissions from what is the country’s heaviest-polluting sector.
Corson said the companies are continuing talks with the government of Canada and of the oil-producing province of Alberta to pursue an agreement over fiscal and regulatory policy support for the project.
“There is some urgency around that, based on our original objective of a 2030 startup,” Corson said. “As time goes on, it becomes increasingly difficult to meet that startup timing.”
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