Imperial Oil reports $1.15B Q4 loss due to a writedown of unconventional assets

Imperial Oil Ltd. reported a loss of $1.15 billion for its fourth-quarter as it took a $1.17-billion non-cash charge related to Canadian unconventional natural gas assets it doesn't think it will ever develop.

The company says the loss amounted to $1.56 per diluted share for the quarter compared with a profit of $271 million or 36 cents per share a year earlier.

Total revenue and other income amounted to $6.03 billion, down from $8.12 billion.

Imperial warned in December that it expected to take a non-cash charge of between $900 million and $1.2 billion, saying it had reassessed the long-term development plans of its unconventional natural gas portfolio in Alberta and no longer plans to develop a "significant portion'' of those assets.

Overall production in the quarter averaged 460,000 gross oil-equivalent barrels per day, up from 398,000 in the same period of 2019, helped by record production at Imperial's Kearl oilsands operation.

Meanwhile, downstream throughput averaged 359,000 barrels per day in the fourth quarter, up from 321,000 in the same quarter in 2019.