Imperial Oil: Canada’s Biggest Renewable Diesel Manufacturing Facility in Alberta

On Thursday, Calgary-based Imperial Oil Ltd. promised $720 million to develop Canada’s biggest renewable diesel refinery. This project would transform Alberta crops into fuel that primarily helps British Columbia in meeting its emissions reduction goals.

Imperial’s board of directors has approved the building of a facility that will generate a billion litres of diesel per year at its Strathcona refinery outside Edmonton utilizing vegetable oils sourced locally – such as soy, canola, or sunflowers – and hydrogen.

The company has announced that it will dedicate a large amount of fuel to British Columbia gas stations to aid in the province’s plan to reduce GHG emissions. Strathcona diesel, made from a special formula developed for use in Canada’s severe winters, will be used to fuel Imperial’s own fleet of cars.

“Imperial supports Canada’s vision for a lower-emission future,” said Imperial’s chief executive officer, Brad Corson. “We are making strategic investments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our own operations and to help customers in vital sectors of the economy reduce their emissions.”

It was previously estimated that the Strathcona facility would cost $500 million, but that number has already increased. The expanded scope of the project, which now includes a larger rail link, as well as the rising cost of labour, is the primary driver of the budget increase, according to an Imperial spokeswoman. This project accounts for a large portion of Imperial’s 2023 capital spending of $1.7 billion.

As of 2026, diesel is expected to be shipped out of the Strathcona facility. Imperial estimates that within two years, the construction will add 600 new jobs, with an additional several hundred new jobs being created by the suppliers. The company stated that it expected getting regulatory approval “in the near term” for the project.

Diesel produced at the new Imperial factory is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from diesel vehicles by about 3 metric tonnes per year, which is equivalent to removing around 650,000 cars from the road.

The Strathcona facility is the first of its kind for parent company Exxon Mobile Corp. Exxon Mobile executives claimed the project would serve as a global technology test bed when it was announced in 2021.

“Canada’s clean fuel regulation could be a model for other countries,” said former head of Exxon Mobil’s low carbon solutions division, Joe Blommaert. “Technology-neutral, lifecycle carbon-intensity based fuels policies like the one proposed in Canada can quickly bring projects like Strathcona to scale and rapidly reduce emissions at a low cost to society.”

Over the next two years, Exxon Mobile expects the Strathcona facility to produce a total of 40,000 barrels of renewable fuel per day, of which 20,000 will be diesel.

Original source material for this article taken from here