Canada's Kearl costs jump 63% over budget

The newly-commissioned Kearl mine is the latest jewel in Canada’s oil-sands crown, but it is also the costliest

Imperial Oil, majority owned by US supermajor ExxonMobil, tacked another C$2 billion ($2.01bn) onto the estimated cost of the project’s first phase, bringing the final price tag to C$12.9bn.  It is the development’s second major cost overrun in less than two years, coming in 18% higher than a revised estimate of C$10.9bn and 63% higher than the initial budget of C$7.9bn. Imperial has begun start-up of the plant and processing modules, and expects to ramp up to full capacity of 110,000 barrels per day (b/d) over the next several months. However, the numbers show that costs in the oil sands are rising. At a capital cost of C$129,000 per flowing barrel of capacity, Kearl is about 30% more expen