Imperial fears year delay to Kearl oilsands project
Claudia Cattaneo, Financial Post Published: Thursday, May 08, 2008
CALGARY -- Imperial Oil Ltd. said in Federal Court Thursday its $8-billion Kearl oilsands project faces a delay of a year or more if a key water permit pulled by the federal government isn't quickly re-instated.
"It took nine months to get this piece of paper," lawyer Munaf Mohamed, of Fraser, Milner Casgrain LLP, argued before Justice Douglas Campbell. "What
is sufficient in terms of the sting of the lash?
"If we can't confirm [the Fisheries authorization] this whole thing gets pushed out a year or more."
Canada's largest integrated oil company said it did nothing wrong to justify the withdrawal of the permit by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
The permit is required to de-water the site of the project so to it can proceed with the construction of a dike. The company said it has a short
window in which to carry out the work.
Imperial asked the court to intervene as a consequence of a complex legal tussle with the environmental movement.
Four groups - the Pembina Institute, the Sierra Club of Canada, the Prairie Acid Rain Coalition and Toxics Watch Society of Alberta - challenged in
federal court the environmental impact assessment of a joint federal provincial panel on grounds it did not adequately deal with greenhouse gases.
They succeeded on only one front - getting the court to ask the panel to provide additional information related to the project's handling of greenhouse-gas emissions. The water permit was withdrawn after the court asked for the clarification.
Federal government lawyer Kirt Lambrecht told the court that the request for additional information effectively re-opened the assessment.
He said the federal cabinet will have to conduct a new review of the environmental impact of the project before issuing a new permit, which may result in a different conclusion now that it has the new information.
Mr. Mohamed said the cabinet can proceed with another review, as long as its old permit is declared valid.
Imperial is developing the mining project with its parent, Exxon Mobil Corp.
