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CANADIAN INDUSTRY ONLINE - AUGUST 2014
Rolheiser, Public and Government Af-
fairs for Imperial, is a veteran with an
impressive 26 years at the company.
He can attest to the strong potential
Imperial has in Alberta as a producer
with an impressive growth trajectory.
“
Imperial is a company that has al-
ways, and will always operate to the
highest standards of our stakehold-
ers,” Rolheiser states.
In Canada, Imperial is a leader
in energy development with a diverse
collection of assets and operations
from coast to coast. Imperial holds
interests in offshore East Coast op-
erations, is pursuing explorations in
Canada’s far north and also operates in
over a dozen areas of the country.
One of Imperial’s original cre-
ations is Syncrude Canada. Imperial
owns 25 per cent of the company,
which runs a mining and upgrading
operation in the Athabasca oil sands
region near Fort McMurray, Alberta.
Imperial’s Norman Wells operation
(
conventional oil), in the Northwest
Territories, lies on the Mackenzie
River about 150 km south of the Arctic
Circle, and is Canada’s most northerly
producing oilfield, producing continu-
ously since the 1920s.
In 2013, the company produced
approximately 260,000 barrels of crude
oil and natural gas liquids and about
250
million cubic feet a day of natural
gas, focusing on maximising produc-
tion of existing oil and gas operations,
honing in on projects with the poten-
tial for strong return, and always con-
sidering cost control.
Imperial counts its Cold Lake
operations as the company’s corner-
stone in Alberta. Cold Lake is the larg-
est thermal in-situ heavy oil operation
in North America, and leases at Cold
Lake cover about 780 square kilome-
tres of oil sands. Imperial led the in-
situ oil-sands industry with Cold Lake,
and devised new recovery techniques
to do so (reducing costs and impacts
on the environment). Imperial patent-
ed cyclic steam stimulation in 1966 and
steam-assisted gravity drainage (now
