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IMPERIAL OIL LTD(IMO)Q1 2025 法說會逐字稿

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OperatorOperator

Good day, and welcome to the Imperial Oil First Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Peter Shaw Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Peter ShawVice President of Investor Relations

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our first quarter earnings conference call. I'm joined this morning by Imperial's senior management team, including Brad Corson, Chairman and CEO; John Whelan, President; Dan Lyons, Senior Vice President, Finance and Administration; Cheryl Gomez Smith, Senior Vice President of the Upstream; and Scott Maloney, Vice President of Downstream. Today's comments include reference to non-GAAP financial measures. The definitions and reconciliations of these measures can be found in Attachment 6 of our most recent press release and are available on our website with a link to this conference call. Today's comments may contain forward-looking information. Any forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and actual future performance and operating results can vary materially depending on a number of factors and assumptions. Forward-looking information and the risk factors and assumptions are described in further detail on our first quarter earnings release that we issued this morning as well as our most recent Form 10-K. All of these documents are available on our website.

So I'd ask you to refer to those. Brad is going to start with some opening remarks and then hand it over to Dan, who is going to provide a financial update, and then Brad will provide an operations update. Once that is done, we will follow with the Q&A session. So with that, I will turn it over to Brad for his opening remarks.

Brad CorsonChairman and CEO

Thank you, Peter. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to our first quarter earnings call. I hope everyone is doing well, and it was great to see many of you at our recent Investor Day in Toronto. As you are likely aware, this will be my last earnings call with John replacing me following next week's AGM and my retirement. But before I leave, I'm really pleased to report another strong quarter for Imperial with earnings of $1,288 million, which represents an increase of earnings per share by 13% year-over-year and by 6% on a sequential quarter basis. This represents our highest ever first quarter earnings in the company's history. We also generated free cash flow of $1,150 million and ended the quarter with nearly $1,800 million of cash on hand. So that puts us in a very strong financial position. And as you may have seen in the release this morning, we intend to renew our normal course issuer bid later this quarter.

So while there is ongoing volatility in commodity prices, I remain very confident in our ability to grow shareholder value over the long term. Our Upstream assets contributed solid production for the quarter, just shy of the record first quarter production we posted a year ago when adjusting for the divestment of XTO Energy Canada. Improved egress continued to support narrower heavy oil differentials than we've seen in the past and especially during the winter months. And this in turn, supported our price realizations. Our Downstream business delivered once again with strong margin capture in a recovering crack spread environment. This business continued to benefit from many durable competitive advantages, including integration, proximity to feedstocks and market, efficient logistics and our strong market position. Over the next few minutes, Dan and I will detail the results of this strong quarter.

So now, let's review the first quarter results. And as I just noted, earnings for the quarter were $1,288 million with cash from operating activities of $1,760 million, when excluding the impact of working capital. Again, this represents our highest ever first quarter earnings. These results reflect the strength of our integrated business model and our ability to capture value for our shareholders. In the Upstream, we achieved total production of 418,000 gross oil equivalent barrels per day in the first quarter. Volume was supported by higher year-over-year production at Cold Lake, including continued strong results at Grand Rapids. We also utilized our enhanced winter operating procedures at Kearl to manage through the extreme cold weather conditions in February. Syncrude production was steady year-over-year. In the Downstream, refinery throughput averaged 397,000 barrels per day, which equates to a refinery utilization of 91%, while petroleum product sales averaged 455,000 barrels per day.

Renewable diesel project construction continued at the Strathcona refinery and we are on track to start up in mid-2025. We paid $307 million in dividends and finished the quarter with nearly $1.8 billion of cash on hand. We remain fully committed to returning surplus cash to shareholders in a timely manner and intend to renew our normal course issuer bid shortly towards the end of the second quarter. And with that, I'll pass things over to Dan to discuss our financial results in more detail.

Dan LyonsSenior Vice President, Finance and Administration

Thanks, Brad. Starting with financial results for the quarter. We recorded net income of $1.288 billion, up $93 million from the first quarter of 2024, primarily driven by higher Upstream margins. When comparing sequentially, first quarter net income is up $63 million from the fourth quarter of 2024, primarily driven by higher Downstream margin capture. Now shifting our attention to each business line and looking sequentially, Upstream earnings of $731 million are down $147 million from the fourth quarter, primarily due to lower volumes. Downstream earnings of $584 million are up $228 million from the fourth quarter mainly reflecting higher margin capture. Our Chemical business generated earnings of $31 million, up $10 million from the fourth quarter. Moving on to cash flow. In the first quarter, we generated $1.527 billion in cash flows from operating activities, excluding unfavorable working capital effects of $233 million.

Cash flows from operating activities for the first quarter were $1.760 billion, up $239 million from the first quarter of 2024. We ended the quarter with $1.764 billion of cash on hand. Shifting to CapEx. Capital expenditures totaled $398 million in the first quarter, about $100 million lower than the first quarter of 2024, driven by project timing. Our full year outlook remains consistent with our previously issued guidance. In the Upstream, first quarter spending focused on sustaining and growing production at Kearl, Syncrude and Cold Lake. The Downstream first quarter spending mainly included continued progress on our renewable diesel project at Strathcona. Moving to shareholder distributions. This morning, we declared a second quarter dividend of $0.72 per share, consistent with our first quarter dividend. A reliable and growing dividend remains the foundation of our free cash flow distribution strategy.

We also remain committed to returning surplus cash to shareholders. And as Brad noted, we intend to renew our annual NCIB share buyback program in June. Now I'll turn it back to Brad to discuss our operational performance.

Brad CorsonChairman and CEO

Thanks, Dan. I know you've all had a chance to look through the numbers, but I do want to focus your attention on some of our key performance highlights. Upstream production for the quarter averaged 418,000 oil equivalent barrels per day. Production was down 42,000 barrels per day versus the fourth quarter, and down slightly or 3,000 barrels per day versus the first quarter of 2024, which, as you may recall, was a record first quarter when adjusting for the XTO divestment. We typically do see lower volumes in the first quarter on a seasonal basis versus the back half of the year. In addition, we managed through some extreme cold weather this year in February. So let's move on and talk specifically about Kearl. Kearl's production in the first quarter averaged 256,000 barrels per day gross, which is down 43,000 barrels per day versus the fourth quarter, and down 21,000 barrels per day versus the first quarter record previously set in 2024.

While Kearl got off to a strong start in January, extreme weather conditions rolled in for most of February. Conditions we haven't seen since the winter of 2022. We utilized our enhanced operating procedures, including deliberately slowing down volumes to manage through these extreme weather conditions. And I'm happy to report that Kearl materially improved relative to the first quarter of 2022 under similar harsh conditions, when total gross production averaged 186,000 barrels per day. That said, we did experience some unplanned downtime in March that impeded a faster recovery. We managed through that as well, and April was a very strong month, with production very close to our best ever April production record of 300,000 barrels per day gross. So despite lower volumes year-over-year, I continue to be very proud of the Kearl team for their hard work, their resilience and overcoming adversity.

We continue to have great confidence in Kearl and our plans to grow volumes further, and continue to lower the unit cash cost, as you heard us detail at Investor Day. A good example of new efforts to optimize Kearl is taking place this month. In May, we're conducting the planned turnaround at the K2 train. The planned turnaround will start next week and is scheduled to be completed by the end of May. And per our corporate guidance, the expected volume metric impact for the year is around 9,000 barrels a day. Following this year's turnaround, we are targeting to run the K2 train for four years, double the previous interval with the next planned turnaround in 2029. Moving to Cold Lake. For the first quarter, Cold Lake production averaged 154,000 barrels per day, which is down 3,000 barrels per day versus the fourth quarter of 2024, and up 12,000 barrels per day versus the first quarter of 2024, primarily driven by Grand Rapids and partially offset by production and steam cycle timing.

New advantaged solvent-assisted SAGD production is enabling transformation at Cold Lake with higher production at lower unit cash costs. Our first quarter results bear that out. Grand Rapids solvent-assisted SAGD production continued to exceed expectations with a quarterly average production of 23,000 barrels per day, supporting Cold Lake's volume, but also improving its unit cash cost, which decreased by over $3 per barrel compared to a year ago. This is exciting and gives us great confidence in future solvent-assisted SAGD developments as well as achievement of our production and unit cost goals for the asset. Just last week, we started the planned turnaround work on the Mahkeses plant at Cold Lake. Speaking with the team, the work is progressing well and is expected to be completed by early June, with a full year volume impact of 3,000 barrels a day. The next transformation of the Cold Lake asset is the Leming SAGD project.

Construction is materially complete now with commissioning progressing throughout this quarter. We are anticipating first steam to be injected this summer with first production following later in the year. The Leming SAGD project is anticipated to produce an additional 9,000 barrels per day at peak levels. I also wanted to provide a brief update on the EBRT pilot at our Aspen lease. We recently reached a key milestone with successful drilling of the three horizontal well pairs. As a reminder, we are constructing the pilot project this year and next, and then intend to start up in early 2027. EBRT is a transformative new technology that could be applied to our significant undeveloped in situ oil sands resource base to achieve low cost, lower emissions, volume growth for decades to come. Now just a few comments on Syncrude. Imperial's share of Syncrude production for the quarter averaged 73,000 barrels per day, which was down 8,000 barrels per day versus the fourth quarter of 2024 and flat versus the first quarter of 2024.

During the quarter, as a result of unplanned downtime, Syncrude continued to utilize the interconnect pipeline to import bitumen and gas oil, ensuring the upgrader remained full and producing about 15,000 barrels per day, our share of incremental Syncrude suite premium in the quarter. Moving on to the Downstream. We refined an average of 397,000 barrels per day, reflecting a utilization of 91%. This compares to 407,000 barrels per day a year ago and 411,000 barrels per day in the fourth quarter. Lower throughput in the first quarter reflects some additional maintenance conducted in our Eastern manufacturing hub. We're conducting two planned turnarounds here in the second quarter at both Strathcona and Nanticoke as we laid out in our corporate guidance outlook. As a reminder, we have our final planned turnaround at Sarnia later this year, straddling the third and fourth quarters. And finally, we expect to complete construction on the Strathcona renewable diesel project facilities shortly here in the second quarter with unit start-up planned for mid-2025.

Petroleum product sales in the quarter were 455,000 barrels per day, which is down 3,000 barrels per day versus the fourth quarter of 2024 and up 5,000 barrels per day versus the first quarter of 2024. Turning now to Chemicals, earnings in the first quarter reached $31 million, an increase of $10 million compared to the fourth quarter. However, this reflects a decrease of $26 million compared to the first quarter of 2024, mainly due to reduced margins and the transition of the aromatics segment to Downstream, which we announced would take effect in the third quarter of last year. Overall, this was another strong quarter, and I take great pride in Imperial's future prospects. It has been an honor to lead Imperial as Chairman, President, and CEO for nearly five and a half years. I never anticipated that my journey—our journey—would navigate both the toughest challenges in the company's 145-year history during the pandemic and then experience several record-breaking accomplishments, both operationally and financially, marking the best years in the company's history.

I am confident that Imperial will continue to flourish and achieve even greater success in the coming years. I am also excited to see our investment decisions yield positive outcomes, particularly with Grand Rapids exceeding expectations, the implementation of autonomous haul trucks and enhancements at Kearl, and our Strathcona renewable diesel project set to launch in the coming months. These are just a few examples. From my first day at Imperial, I have been consistently impressed by our team. Over the past five years, I have been reminded of the exceptional quality of our people. Their creativity, determination, resilience, and focus are clear every day as they work diligently to enhance our business and supply critical energy to society. The achievements of this outstanding team are reflected in our ability to deliver remarkable returns to shareholders, and our commitment to this will not change.

I am very proud of what we have accomplished for our shareholders through share price growth, dividend increases, and returning excess cash via share buybacks. I am also pleased to welcome John Whelan, who is expected to succeed me as Chairman and CEO at our upcoming AGM on May 8. As I shared at Investor Day, John and I have known each other for over 20 years, with our paths crossing several times. He has worked under my leadership in two different roles during my 42-year career, and we have collaborated on numerous leadership teams. John is returning to Imperial after serving as Senior Vice President of ExxonMobil Upstream Company since 2020, and prior to that, he was Imperial's Senior Vice President for Upstream from 2017 to 2020. Given his extensive experience, I believe John is well-equipped to steer Imperial into the future. I want to thank you once more for your ongoing interest and support, and I wish you all the best moving forward.

Although I will not be leading any more earnings calls, I will certainly be listening and celebrating the company's ongoing success. Now, we'll transition to the Q&A session, and I'll hand it back to Peter.

Peter ShawVice President of Investor Relations

Thank you, Brad. As always, we'd appreciate it if you could limit yourself to one question, plus a follow-up so that we can get to all the questions. So with that, operator, can you please open up the line for questions?

分析師問答

OperatorOperator

Thank you. Our first question will come from Greg Pardy with RBC Capital Markets.

Greg PardyAnalyst

Yeah. Thanks. Good morning. And look, absolutely great chapter, I think, in Imperial's history. And Brad, just all the best to you, and of course, welcome John. Again, two very different questions, but maybe just on the operations side, I was curious. The Downstream numbers looked really good. And I know you alluded to some margin capture. I'm just wondering if we could dig in a little bit more into perhaps where you captured additional margin in the Downstream in the first quarter maybe versus others?

Brad CorsonChairman and CEO

Yeah. Thanks for the questions, Greg, and great to hear from you after seeing you at our Investor Day. We talk extensively about the value of our Downstream, the value of integration, the advantages we have structurally here in Canada. All of those have contributed to our success here in the first quarter in the Downstream. But since we got Scott here, maybe I'll ask him to make a few more comments on what's unique here in the first quarter.

Scott MaloneyVice President of Downstream

Yeah. Thanks, Brad. We've certainly leveraged a lot of those structural advantages, as Brad mentioned before, to place our barrels in the highest uplift opportunities both on the eastern and western part of Canada. And that's structurally what helped us deliver these stronger numbers this year. We've also had some volatility in the marketplace, and that volatility gives us some opportunities for placing those barrels in the highest uplift opportunity. And as you see in typical first quarters, as the quarter goes on, you start to see some maintenance activity from a turnaround perspective starting to play in the last part of the first quarter, and that also enables some additional margin in the Downstream business.

Greg PardyAnalyst

Okay. Thanks for that. A completely different question. I mean with the renewal of the NCIB, the last number of years has been really acceleration into the second half of the year. How are you thinking, especially just given the pretty sloppy oil price backdrop? Is the thinking that you'd accelerate or that you would perhaps execute it over a one-year time frame or is it all to be determined?

Brad CorsonChairman and CEO

It's a great question, Greg. There's certainly a lot of uncertainty in the market. What we see with these first quarter results is the strong resilience provided by our integrated business model, combined with the underlying strength of our assets. This enables us to maintain consistency in our strategies and avoid fundamental changes. Regarding the NCIB, we will monitor external factors closely. We are currently in a strong cash position, and we have no reason to believe that will change as we move into the second half of the year. Therefore, we will decide the right pace as we move forward. As you noted, in the past couple of years, we have accelerated the NCIB to return surplus cash to shareholders promptly. This approach has given us flexibility, and as we look ahead, we will continue to assess the situation to determine if that remains appropriate. I don't want to get ahead of John or the leadership team, but one reason for past accelerations was to provide flexibility for a Special Dividend if necessary to return surplus cash. There is still considerable uncertainty in the months ahead, but you can count on us to return surplus cash in a timely manner.

Greg PardyAnalyst

All right. Thanks very much and good luck.

Brad CorsonChairman and CEO

Thanks, Greg.

OperatorOperator

And our next question comes from Manav Gupta with UBS.

Manav GuptaAnalyst

Good morning, Brad. Many investors would agree that IMO is a much stronger company today than it was five years ago. If you look at the stock price from five years ago, it was below $21, which shows that the stock price increase reflects the good work you have done. My first question is about Cold Lake cash costs. They are down about 18% year-over-year. With Grand Rapids performing better than expected and Leming coming online later this year, how should we consider the cash costs at Cold Lake for the remainder of the year and, more importantly, for 2026?

Brad CorsonChairman and CEO

Yes. Thanks for the comment, Manav, and thanks so much for the words and recognition of what the whole team has accomplished, which is obviously reflected in our share price, and that has very much been a collective effort of this great organization and team that have surrounded and supported me over the last five years. With respect to your question, I'm glad you called out Cold Lake. We have talked extensively over the last years about Kearl because we've been on an important journey to get Kearl to $20 a barrel. We've achieved that now. We're working quite diligently to get Kearl to $18 a barrel. But what's been progressing in parallel to that is a really important strategy to improve the structural costs at Cold Lake as well. Grand Rapids and SA-SAGD as a technology is a key enabler because it fundamentally is our lower cost barrels that we're bringing on. As I noted, compared to a year ago, Cold Lake's cash costs are down $3 a barrel, and this is all on our journey as we talked about at Investor Day to get us to $13 a barrel.

So as the year goes on, we're going to continue to strive for further improvements. Continued Grand Rapids success and strong volume performance will contribute to that. And then certainly as we start up Leming, those are lower cost barrels as well. And so those will further support this journey to $13 a barrel. So several months ahead of us. But the strategy is that we are continuing to work on our cost structure across all our assets, but specifically here at Cold Lake, and Grand Rapids, Leming, everything we're doing with these new developments are targeted towards lower costs. So I feel quite good about that. I don't know that there's really anything else I would add at this time, but kind of watch this space because it's really exciting what the team is doing at Cold Lake.

Manav GuptaAnalyst

Perfect. My quick follow-up here is you have a unique refining system. You get levered to the East Coast crack, Chicago crack, even the West Coast crack. We are in a relatively tougher macro environment. And I just wanted to understand from you, from your refining system, have you seen any signs of recessionary demand kick in? Or the markets are you supplying to, the underlying demand remains relatively resilient even if the macro seems choppy. So if you could help us with that.

Brad CorsonChairman and CEO

Thank you for the question. I continue to emphasize our resilience. Our diverse customer base and extensive infrastructure across the country enable us to capitalize on the most lucrative markets. We have not observed any significant decline in demand. While there are seasonal fluctuations in our products, there’s nothing particularly concerning at this time. Additionally, when examining product inventories across the country—not just for us but for the industry and globally—these inventories are generally at the lower end of the five-year range. This scenario also supports strength in the market.

Manav GuptaAnalyst

Thank you.

Brad CorsonChairman and CEO

Thanks, Manav.

OperatorOperator

And our next question will come from Dennis Fong with CIBC World Markets.

Dennis FongAnalyst

Hi. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions and I'd like to reiterate my congratulations on a job very well done to you, Brad, and an incremental welcome to John. My first question focuses a little bit on the Upstream side. I was hoping if you could provide a little bit of incremental data points or clarity that really drive the confidence at running for your intervals between major maintenance as well can you discuss some of the changes in either equipment or operating procedures that allow you for kind of maybe more minor maintenance to be conducted that has like moderate or little impacts to output?

Brad CorsonChairman and CEO

Yeah. Thank you, Dennis, and appreciate your comments there at the beginning. And it's an exciting journey we've been on with turnarounds at Kearl. If you think about where we were just a few years ago, we were conducting two turnarounds per year and then moved to one turnaround per year. And now over the last couple of years, we've reduced the duration of each of those turnarounds. And as I mentioned, we're getting ready to start one of those turnarounds here next week, and we expect to complete it essentially in the same month, which historically, we would have never had turnarounds limited to just one month in a year. But as we look to the future, we see this as integral and key to continuing to improve our volume performance and fundamentally our cost performance as well. We are planning, after this turnaround, to be in a position that we can run much longer between turnarounds and are targeting four years. But with that, I've got Cheryl right here; she is right in the middle of this strategy and spent a lot of time with the current as they've refined that approach. Maybe I'll let her talk a little bit about some of the details.

Cheryl Gomez-SmithSenior Vice President of the Upstream

Sure. Thanks, Brad. As Brad mentioned, we've been on a journey to optimize our turnaround activity. This year, we are spending time to do the work that will support this further extension to a four-year interval. So what's made the difference? Along this journey, we've been integrating technology, really looking at our data and analytics to make better decisions. We've been benchmarking, continuing to leverage those global learnings. One of the things that you heard during Investor Day is I mentioned that we're sitting on a foundation of a continuous improvement mindset. Especially when I think about turnaround activity and how we optimize that, it's really focusing on driving clarity and a relentless focus on what needs to be done in a turnaround versus what we can do outside of a turnaround. So there's not a single item there; it's a mix of all of those enablers that are really going to get us from where we are right now to this four-year interval.

Dennis FongAnalyst

Great. I really appreciate that incremental clarity. My second question here is maybe targeted to Brad and maybe John. Through time, Imperial has acted opportunistically and even countercyclically in terms of spending or deploying capital, especially as compared to some of your peers. Given the combination of the balance sheet strength that you see today, the longer duration of view that Imperial takes on investment cycles, how are you strategically thinking about potentially taking advantage of all the uncertainty we see today in the market?

Brad CorsonChairman and CEO

Yeah. Thanks for that question. Certainly, that has been our strategy in the past of ensuring that we are optimizing our capital, how we target specific projects, and really focus on the highest return. I take that part of your underlying question as really about M&A opportunities. As I mentioned in the past, the aperture has always been open, but the bar is high because we have a very high-quality portfolio today. Any opportunity we would pursue would have to compete with that. I don't expect that to fundamentally change. But John is here and he'll be kind of steering the ship now in the future. Maybe I'll let him talk a little bit about that.

John WhelanPresident

Thank you, Brad. I believe there will not be any fundamental changes. Firstly, I want to express how honored and excited I am to return to Imperial in this role. As a Canadian, leading a company with over 145 years of proud history is truly a privilege. I recognize the big shoes I have to fill following Brad. We've known each other for over 20 years, and I have deep respect for his leadership and the outstanding performance of Imperial under his guidance. I am dedicated to continuing that level of performance. Moving forward, I am committed to ensuring that our shareholders, stakeholders, and employees take pride in being part of this company. Under my leadership, Imperial's winning strategy will remain consistent, focusing on increasing cash flow and delivering unparalleled shareholder returns. This will include maximizing the value of our existing assets, targeted improvements, and continued cost reductions.

We will invest in select growth opportunities for our assets, such as enhancements at Kearl, Cold Lake, and Strathcona, while also pursuing future strategic growth in our in-situ business. We will assess opportunities as the energy transition evolves and utilize technology alongside our relationship with ExxonMobil. Our strategy will be consistent, which I believe has proven successful. I will work diligently to leverage our competitive advantages in technology, scale, integration, and execution excellence, while upholding high standards in everything we do. I also want to highlight that we have the best team in the industry, with world-class capabilities developed over generations. My intention is to take our unique advantages, apply them to our valuable assets and opportunities, and drive leading value creation and unparalleled shareholder returns going forward.

OperatorOperator

And our next question will come from Menno Hulshof with TD Cowen.

Menno HulshofAnalyst

Good morning, everyone, and congrats to the both of you. I'll start with a question on the February cold snap. It sounds like in your opening comments, Brad, it sounded like things went reasonably well under the circumstances. But were there any additional learnings that came out of that beyond what was learned in 2022? And do you have any new ideas on work that could get done to mitigate downtime related to extreme cold going forward?

Brad CorsonChairman and CEO

Thank you for your question, Menno. I’m going to hand it over to Cheryl shortly, but I want to reflect on February. It was quite a challenging month in terms of weather. However, we learned from the 2022 incident and identified several operational improvements we could implement. We established new protocols that helped us navigate through this year's similar situation more effectively than in 2022, although we still experienced lower volumes compared to the previous quarter and last year. I am proud of the progress we made, and it showcases the strength of those protocols. There are always lessons to be learned, and we will continue to improve in these situations in the future. Now, I’ll let Cheryl share some insights we gained and how we plan to apply them moving forward.

Cheryl Gomez-SmithSenior Vice President of the Upstream

Sure. And thank you, Brad. And maybe a little bit of start. The cold weather protocols we exercise with extreme weather conditions. So think of this at 25 degrees Celsius, minus 35 degrees Celsius. What we do is reduce throughput aligned with our equipment strategies and focus on maintaining equipment integrity. February 2025 was in the Fort McMurray region, one of the highest numbers of extreme cold days compared to 2022. We applied the learnings from 2022 and the protocols worked as intended. As Brad mentioned, of course, we had a very strong month with production in April, just below our best ever, still on target to meet external guidance. In terms of what comes next, and that's a great question. Going forward, we're looking at where we can build capacity and redundancy. I mentioned during the Investor Day some of the things that we're doing with our hydro transport lines. This will allow us to further strengthen this performance going forward to weather the storms.

Menno HulshofAnalyst

Thank you for that. That’s very helpful. My second question is about the EBRT pilot mentioned in the prepared remarks. Could you elaborate on the scope of the pilot? More importantly, what are the key deliverables you’ve identified that define success, and how are you managing the overall risk that the success of EBRT could be a catalyst for Aspen's approval?

Brad CorsonChairman and CEO

I'll let Cheryl comment on that again.

Cheryl Gomez-SmithSenior Vice President of the Upstream

Sure. So as Brad mentioned, we're constructing a short-term small-scale pilot, and this is to test the commercial potential of our enhanced bitumen recovery technology, Aspen lease in the Fort McMurray area. The start-up is in 2027, and we're going to run the pilot for several years. There are three key areas that we really need to validate. One of them is the production uplift. The second is overall recovery. The project itself is really dependent on solvent recovery. The pilot is intended to derisk these technologies, and this is a step that we've taken with all technology, as highlighted before. This is a transformative technology and it will allow us to be more globally competitive, capitally efficient, and highly resilient. We are looking at this; we need to take the time, and this is a staged approach really to derisk the technology. So that's the time we will be taking with the pilot going forward.

Menno HulshofAnalyst

Thank you. I’ll turn it back.

Peter ShawVice President of Investor Relations

Thank you. And so on behalf of the management team, I thank you for joining us this morning. If there's any further questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to anybody on the Investor Relations team. We'll be happy to answer your questions. And with that, I'll add one more thank you to Brad for his time over the last 5.5 years at Imperial, and we wish everybody on the call a great day. Thank you.

OperatorOperator

Thank you. That does conclude today's conference. We do thank you for your participation. Have an excellent day.

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