Bruce March, president and CEO of Imperial Oil, addresses the company's annual meeting in Calgary, Thursday, April 28, 2011.Jeff McIntosh
Major oil producer and refiner Imperial Oil's third-quarter profit more than doubled to $859-million as the company saw strong results from its Cold Lake and Syncrude oilsands operations.
Calgary-based Imperial said Thursday it earned $1.01 per share in the most recently concluded period, up from $418-million or 49 cents per share in the same period a year earlier.
"Strong market conditions were captured by our solid operating performance in the upstream, downstream and chemical sectors," president and CEO Bruce March said in a statement.
"Another record quarterly production at Cold Lake and higher production at Syncrude contributed to an oil-equivalent production increase of five per cent over the third quarter of 2010. Less scheduled refinery downtime contributed to a significant improvement in downstream earnings in the third quarter compared to the second quarter of 2011."
Total revenues for the period rose to $7.9-billion from a year-before $5.9-billion. Cold Lake saw record quarterly production averaging 162,000 barrels a day, while Syncrude production Syncrude rose to 75,000 barrels from 66,000 barrels.
Analysts polled by Thomson-Reuters were on average expecting Imperial to earn 96 cents per share during the quarter and post revenues of about $8.2-billion.
Imperial, majority-owned by Houston-based energy heavyweight ExxonMobil Corp. , is in the midst of building its massive Kearl oilsands mine. The first 110,000-barrel-per day phase of that project is set to come on stream late next year.