Imperial announced over the weekend that production of mined diluted bitumen from the first of three froth treatment trains had started.
It added that the start-up of the remaining two bitumen froth trains would proceed in sequence as planned with the aim of bringing production from the initial development to about 110,000 barrels per day later this year.
The next expansion phase of the project will see an additional 110,000 bpd brought online by late 2015, with Imperial expecting future debottlenecking to increase overall output to 345,000 bpd by 2020.
Kearl
