Imperial begins renewable diesel production at Strathcona refinery in Alberta, Canada
- Ron Kotrba
- Aug 1
- 2 min read
Imperial Oil Ltd. announced in its second-quarter earnings report that it has completed construction and commissioning on Canada’s largest renewable diesel facility located at the Strathcona refinery near Edmonton, Alberta.
The plant is scaled to produce up to 1 billion liters (264 million gallons) of renewable diesel per year.
First production of renewable diesel at the Strathcona complex occurred in July, according to the company.
“I am pleased to announce the start-up of Canada’s largest renewable diesel facility, which will deliver high-quality, lower-emission fuels to the Canadian transportation sector,” said John Whelan, chairman, president and CEO of Imperial.
“This project is expected to deliver attractive returns and complements our integrated business model and industry-leading refinery base,” he added.
Imperial first announced its intention to develop the project in August 2021 using locally grown and sourced feedstocks.
In September 2022, Imperial announced the award of a hydrogen contract for production of renewable diesel to Air Products.
The following month, in October 2022, Fluor was awarded a reimbursable front-end engineering and detailed design, engineering and procurement services contract for Imperial’s Strathcona renewable diesel project.
Fluor was contracted to design and integrate a new renewable diesel unit into the existing Strathcona refinery.
The integration included a series of utility tie-ins, electrical and control-systems integration as well as commodity storage, loading and unloading capabilities.
In January 2023, Imperial reached a final-investment decision to move forward with the major project at a cost of CAD$720 million (USD$522.35 million).
By May 2023, key contractors were mobilized to the site to begin work on facility construction.
The Alberta government granted Imperial conditional approval for a tax credit estimated at about CAD$70 million (USD$50.8 million) in spring 2024 for its Strathcona renewable diesel project under the Agri-Processing Investment Tax Credit.
