(Reuters) – Imperial Oil Ltd said Wednesday that it had halted the production of its Kearl oil sands of 220,000 barrels per day (b/d) in Canada due to a failure in a component of the Polaris dilution pipeline following a leak.The restart of production is unknown, the company said in a statement.Imperial is majority owned through the US company Exxon Mobil Corp.
The ultralight pipeline from Edmonton, Alberta, to oil sand sites to be combined with bitumen for transport.
Inter Pipeline, owner of Polaris, detected a leak in its formula on Saturday and met on Monday, ending a segment of Polaris, informed the Alberta Energy Regulator of a 90 cubic meter (566 barrel) spill of soft oil about 20 kilometers southeast of Fort McMurray, Alberta, regulator Shawn Roth said.
The effect on fish and wildlife is unclear,” Roth said.The spill occurred 80 meters from a wetland and one kilometer from the Clearwater River.
The outage is expected to eliminate between 240,000 and 270,000 b/d from the market for at least a few weeks, affecting U.S. refineries, Credit Suisse said in a note.at Husky Energy’s Sunrise oil sands plant, Eight Capital said on a note.
The closure affects Husky, but the company has features to mitigate the effects, spokeswoman Dawn Delaney said, giving additional details.
The Canadian heavy oil rebate granted to West Texas Intermediate fell 35 cents according to the barrel to $9.55, reflecting an increase consistent with Canadian costs due to reduced supplies.
Inter Pipeline declined to comment. He said monday that the cleaning is underway.
Arpan Varghese reports on Bengaluru and Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Manitoba; Editing through Andrea Ricci
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