Imperial Oil Earnings Fall as Refinery Throughput Slips, But Upstream Output Nudges Up

By Robb M. Stewart

Imperial Oil's earnings dropped in the first three months of the year despite a tailwind from higher energy prices.

The Exxon Mobil-controlled Canadian oil and gas producer's net income fell to 940 million Canadian dollars (US$692 million), or C$1.94 a share, from C$1.29 billion, or C$2.52, a year earlier.

Cash flows from operating activities declined to C$756 million in the first quarter from C$1.53 billion in the same period of 2025.

Imperial, Canada's largest petroleum refiner and a big producer of crude oil, logged a slip in revenue and other income to C$12.45 billion from C$12.52 billion last year. Analysts polled by FactSet had penciled in C$11.98 billion in revenue.

Upstream production in the quarter averaged 419,000 gross oil-equivalent barrels a day, 1,000 barrels higher than last year. At the Kearl oil sands operation in Alberta, in which Exxon has stake, Imperial's share of quarterly production averaged 183,000 barrels against 181,000 a year earlier.

Refinery capacity utilization was 88% for the latest quarter as throughput averaged 384,000 barrels a day, down from 397,000 in 2025, due to unplanned downtime and a disruption of synthetic crude feedstock caused by a coker outage at Sycrude Canada, which is majority owned by Suncor Energy. The company's share of gross production from Syncrude averaged 72,000 barrels a day versus 73,000 in the first quarter of 2025.

Petroleum product sales totaled 441,000 barrels daily, compared with 455,000 barrels a year ago, which the company said was mainly due to lower volumes in the supply channel.

Crude oil prices jumped during the quarter as the conflict in the Middle East escalated, tightening supplies globally, and Imperial said industry refining margins improved in the period amid supply outages in the industry.

Write to Robb M. Stewart at robb.stewart@wsj.com

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May 01, 2026 09:08 ET (13:08 GMT)