Imperial Oil posts Q2 loss on coronavirus-led oil slump

Imperial Oil posted a second-straight quarterly loss on Friday, hit by lower crude prices and refining margins as the COVID-19 pandemic dented demand for fuel and related products.

The coronavirus outbreak led to the grounding of flights and brought economies to a standstill, hurting demand for fuel and forcing producers to implement widespread output cuts to curb oversupply after oil prices collapsed this year.

Imperial, which is majority owned by Exxon Mobil Corp, said its refinery throughput averaged 278,000 barrels per day, 19 per centlower than last year, with overall utilization at 66 per centin the quarter.

Prices for the company's U.S. crude fell about 53.5 per centto $37.37 per barrel, while Canadian crude prices dropped about 66 per centfrom year-ago levels to $22.46 per barrel.

The company said it expects lower realized prices for its products to result in substantially lower earnings and cash generated from operations than in 2019, unless conditions improve significantly in the latter half of the year.

Imperial's quarterly average production for the quarter fell 13.3 per centto 347,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/pd) due to scheduled shutdowns of its Kearl and Syncrude oilsands deposits to balance near-term output with poor demand.

The Calgary-based company posted a loss of $526 million, or 72 cents per share, for the second quarter ended June 30, compared with a profit of $1.21 billion, or $1.57 per share, last year.