As part of an ongoing pilot, Imperial Oil along with its development partners (ExxonMobil owns 30%, Imperial Oil 70%) moved the first payload at the Kearl oil sands mine in Alberta using a fully autonomous 400 short ton (363 t) Caterpillar 797F haul truck in June 2018. According to the miner, this is the largest autonomous truck put into a productive operating environment. The company’s testing program is targeted to ramp up to a fleet of seven autonomous trucks by year-end. Imperial has entered into a joint development agreement with Caterpillar and Finning to test the use of autonomous haul trucks in a segregated area. Kearl uses Cat 7495 rope shovels for loading.

For the second quarter of 2018, gross production of Kearl bitumen averaged 180,000 barrels per day (128,000 barrels Imperial’s share), up from 171,000 barrels per day (121,000 barrels Imperial’s share) in the same period of 2017. Production was impacted by 48,000 barrels per day (34,000 barrels Imperial’s share) associated with planned turnaround activities at one of the two plants. The company continued to progress reliability improvements during the quarter, including construction activities to add supplemental crushing capacity. Imperial continues to expect annual average gross production at Kearl of 200,000 barrels per day in 2018.