 | |
| Company type | Publicsubsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Petroleum[2] |
| Founded | 1880; 145 years ago (1880) |
| Headquarters | 505 Quarry Park Boulevard SE,Calgary,Alberta, Canada |
Key people | Brad Corson,Chairman (president &CEO)[3] |
| Products | Petrochemical[2] products |
| Revenue |  $26.888 billionCAD (2015)[2] |
| $1.122 billionCAD (2015)[2] | |
| Total assets | $43.170 billionCAD (2015)[2] |
| Total equity | $23.425 billionCAD (2015)[2] |
Number of employees | 5,263 (2012)[2] |
| Parent | ExxonMobil (69.6%)[2][4] |
| Website | imperialoil.ca |
Imperial Oil Limited (French:Compagnie Pétrolière Impériale Ltée) is a Canadianpetroleum company.[2] It is Canada's second-largest integrated oil company. It is majority-owned by American oil companyExxonMobil, with a 69.6%ownership stake in the company.[5] It is a producer ofcrude oil,diluted bitumen, andnatural gas. Imperial Oil is one of Canada's majorpetroleum refiners andpetrochemical producers.[2] It suppliesEsso-brandservice stations.[2][6]
Imperial owns 25% ofSyncrude, which is one of the world's largestoil sands operations.[2] It also has holdings in theAlberta Oil Sands, and operates theKearl Oil Sands mining operation with ExxonMobil.[7][8]
Imperial Oil is headquartered inCalgary,Alberta. It was based inToronto,Ontario, until 2005.[2][9] Most of Imperial's production is from itsnatural resource holdings in theAlbertaoil sands[10][self-published source?] and theNorman Wells oil field in theNorthwest Territories.[11]
Imperial Oil was ranked 34th in the Arctic Environmental Responsibility Index (AERI) for 2021 out of 120 mining, oil, and gas corporations that extract resources north of theArctic Circle.[12]
In April 1880,Jacob Lewis Englehart and 16 prominent oil refiners inLondon, Ontario, andPetrolia, Ontario, formed Imperial Oil in response toStandard Oil's growing dominance of the oil market.[13] Englehart aimed to emulateJohn D. Rockefeller and merge the entire Canadian oil industry into oneconglomerate.[14] Although the majority of Ontario's top oil producers agreed to join in the enterprise, exceptions includedJohn Henry Fairbank, who was then Canada's largest oil producer, andJames Miller Williams, founder of the Canadian Oil Company.[15] Englehart and the refiners established Imperial Oil as ajoint-stock company with a capitalized value of $500,000.[16] In addition to Englehart, the original shareholders includedFrederick A. Fitzgerald, Isaac and Herman Waterman, William Spencer and his sons William and Charles, Thomas and Edward Hodgins, John Geary, Joseph Fallows, John Minhinnick, William English and John Walker.[17] Together, the shareholders possessed twelve oil refineries and controlled 85% of the refining capacity in Canada.[18] Fitzgerald and Englehart were the two largest stakeholders in the company and were named the president and vice president, respectively.[19] Imperial Oil's charter noted that its goal was to "find, produce, refine and distribute petroleum and its products throughout Canada."[15]
Despite its early successes, Imperial Oil struggled to make a profit and issue dividends in the early 1880s.[20] The discovery of new oil fields inPennsylvania andNew York drove down the price of oil, and the creation of the Standard Oil Trust resulted in an increase of American oil imports into Canada.[20] In a move to boostkerosene prices, Imperial closed down ten of the twelve refineries it had acquired through the merger, leaving only the Silver Star refinery in Petrolia and the Victor works in London.[20] In 1883, the Victor works was struck by lightning and burned to the ground, and under Englehart's direction, the company concentrated its refining efforts at Petrolia.[15][21]
In 1884, Imperial Oil purchased the exclusive use ofHerman Frasch'sfractional distillation patent, which was more efficient at separating crude oil into usable products.[22] Imperial initially offered Frasch $10,000 and Imperial Oil stock, but he persuaded the company to offer him a salary that matched Fitzgerald's and a seat on the Board of Directors.[22] Frasch had taken the position primarily to supervise the installation of his refining method at the Silver Star refinery and resigned in February 1885 once the work was complete.[23] Frasch then joined John Minhinnick in forming a separate venture called the Empire Oil Company.[22] The pair purchased an idle refinery inLondon, and Frasch began experimenting on a way to remove the sulphur content in the oil pumped atLambton County.[22] The high sulphur content in Canadian oil placed it at a disadvantage compared to the oil mined at Pennsylvania due to its "distinctive odour" when burned.[24] Canadians called the product "skunk oil".[24] Between 1885 and 1887, Frasch discovered that mixing copper oxide with the oil during the distilling process would remove the sulphur content and odour from the refined product.[25]
By this time, Standard Oil had also become interested in the desulphurization process after moving production to oil fields in Ohio that had a similar sulphur content to Lambton County.[26] In 1886, Standard Oil persuaded Frasch to return to the United States and join their company by offering "a salary higher than that of any other scientist in the country" and an exchange of his shares in the Empire Oil Company for an equivalent amount in Standard Oil.[26] After returning to the United States, Frasch perfected his desulphurization strategy, and Standard Oil held a monopoly on the process until 1905.[27]
Despite rising revenue and growth in the 1890s, Imperial Oil faced continuing challenges in its markets, primarily from Standard Oil, which operated a series of subsidiary companies across Canada.[28][29] Although Imperial dominated the Western Canadian market, the company could not establish a strong foothold in theMaritimes orQuebec as Standard supplied these regions through long-term contracts with local companies.[30] While theConservative Party'sNational Policy had stopped Standard Oil from fully entering the Canadian market, the economic policy came under attack by Standard Oil lobbyists and Canadian consumers, who asked for a cheaper and higher quality product.[31][32] In 1893, Ottawa reducedimport duties on refined oil products from 7.2 cents to 6 cents perwine gallon, and in 1896, Wilfrid Laurier's government reduced the tariff again to 5 cents.[31] Additionally, Laurier removed restrictions on tank cars and tank steamers, allowing foreign companies to bulk ship oil into Canada by rail or sea.[31] Before, foreign companies had to repackage their product into oil barrels before entering Canada, adding roughly five cents in shipping and handling charges to each gallon of imported oil.[31][32]
In 1895, Imperial Oil's Board of Directors began negotiations to sell the company to theColonial Development Corporation, a British company.[33] After three years, the deal collapsed, and the Board of Directors instead chose to sell the company to Standard Oil.[33] The agreement specified that Standard Oil would acquire 75% of Imperial Oil's shares, Imperial Oil would acquire all of Standard Oil's Canadian subsidiary companies, Imperial's capitalization would be increased to $1 million, and Imperial shareholders would receive a dividend of $93,000.[33][34] Following the deal, Imperial Oil shut down the Silver Star refinery in Petrolia and moved its refining operations toSarnia, Ontario.[33]
In alandmark 1911 anti-trust case, theU.S. Supreme Court ordered Standard Oil to break up into 34 separate companies. Ownership of Imperial Oil, as well Standard Oil's other subsidiaries outside the U.S., were all transferred to only one of those 34 successor firms, Jersey Standard (later renamedExxon).[35]
Imperial Oil discovered theLeduc WoodbendDevonian oil reef in 1947, marking the beginning of the contemporary period in Canadian oil and gas development.[36] Drilling began on the landmark discovery well Leduc No. 1 on November 20, 1946.[36]
In 1989, Imperial Oil acquiredTexaco'sCanadian operations.[37]
When Exxon andMobil merged in 1999 to formExxonMobil, the combined company continued to maintain Mobil's Canadian operations as a separate subsidiary, independent of Imperial Oil.[38]
From the1934-35 season through the1975-76 season, Imperial Oil was a sponsor of theCanadian Broadcasting Corporation programHockey Night in Canada for bothradio andtelevision broadcasts.[39][40]Esso, which had three stars on their signs, sponsoredHockey Night in Canada'sthree stars of the game.
In the same era, the company was also involved in film production, providing funding for independent documentary films.Glenbow Museum in Calgary holds a large collection of Imperial Oil's film inventory.[41]
Imperial Oil supplied more than 2,000 service stations as of October 2020,[42] all of which were owned by third parties. It sold its remaining 497 stations in 2016 to retailers such asAlimentation Couche-Tard (mostly Ontario and Quebec),7-Eleven (mostly Alberta andBritish Columbia),Parkland, Harnois (Quebec) andWilson Fuel (Atlantic Canada).[43] In the late early 1990s Imperial Oil had acquired retail operations fromTexaco's Canadian unit Texaco Canada Incorporated.
With ExxonMobil having majority ownership, Imperial Oil licences its parent company's brands, including theEsso andMobil names for service stations, and theSpeedpass electronic payment system.
Until 2018, Imperial Oil was a member of the rewards programAeroplan. On March 13, 2018,Loblaw Companies announced that it had reached a deal for the Esso-branded stations to join thePC Optimum rewards program, beginning on June 1, 2018.[44] Loblaw Companies had sold its network of 213 gas stations (all of which are attached to its various grocery store locations) toBrookfield Business Partners in 2017; Brookfield entered into an agreement with Imperial Oil to use the Mobil brand for these stations. As part of the sale agreement, these stations also continue to participate in PC Optimum.[45]
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