Imperial Oil Ltd. says it will shift its head office to Calgary from Toronto, with the move to the Alberta oil patch affecting 1,500 employees and expected to be completed by next August.
There are about 3,000 Imperial Oil workers in Ontario. About 1,500 are in Toronto and up to 500 will be offered transfers to Calgary, the big oil company said Wednesday.
Calgary now houses Imperial Oil's resources division and a research centre, and the firm currently employs about 900 in the city.
"This move will enable Imperial to strengthen its focus on the major opportunities for the company, and help meet Canada's growing energy needs," chairman-CEO Tim Hearn said in a release.
"In addition, having our corporate offices in one location will assist with overall organizational effectiveness."
Imperial is one of the largest producers of crude oil in Canada and a major producer of natural gas. It is also the largest refiner and marketer of petroleum products, sold mainly under the Esso brand name, and a major producer of petrochemicals.
The company is the second-largest partner in the Syncrude Canada joint venture north of Fort McMurray, Alta., with a 25 per cent stake. And its Cold Lake development in northeastern Alberta is a major heavy oil producer with future expansion plans designed to increase total production to about 180,000 barrels a day later this decade.
Imperial's next big foray into the northern Alberta oilsands is a phased-in open-pit mining project called Kearl Lake that is expected to cost upwards of $8-billion.
It is also the lead company in a consortium of large international oilpatch players seeking to build a natural gas pipeline down Canada's Mackenzie Valley, bringing large quantities of gas to energy-thirsty markets in the United States.
The company had been rumoured to be considering a move for years, following in the footsteps of companies like Canadian Pacific Ltd. and TransCanada PipeLines Ltd., which moved their headquarters to Calgary in the 1980s and 1990s.
Imperial has been the only large Canadian oil company not headquartered in the southern Alberta city.
Major energy companies such as Shell Canada, Suncor Energy and EnCana Corp. are located there, and Calgary is also home to the Canadian offices of the major American energy companies such as Burlington Resources, Devon Energy and Anadarko.
It's not known whether staff will be absorbed into Imperial's existing Calgary office or if a new home will be found. Imperial Oil owns empty commercial space in the downtown core, one city commercial real estate developer told the Calgary Sun.