Returning properties to productive use

Our approach to decommissioning and remediation.

Article

We manage properties from start to finish; long before the first well, refinery or gas station goes up and long after operations end. Properties often stay in our portfolio for decades – some are bordering on a century! When properties are no longer supporting operations, they are decommissioned and moved into a category we call surplus properties.

Every year we spend millions of dollars assessing, managing and remediating these surplus properties, with the ultimate goal of seeing them returned to productive use - whether that be for homes, parks, agricultural, commercial use or through releasing leases back to governments.

*Intended end use provided to Imperial by the purchaser at the time of sale and subject to change.

In 2019, Imperial spent more than $110 million on assessment, risk management, land remediation and reclamation activities resulting in 110 properties being put into productive use either via sale or lease returns.

Many factors influence the sale of a particular property, including community, environmental and technical considerations as well as the market value of the property, potential future uses, purchaser financial capacity and regulatory requirements.

Our decommissioning and remediation approach

There are a number of ways to remediate a property. Our teams consider the interests of various stakeholders when selecting site-specific, science-based and cost-effective approaches to remediation.

We are committed to innovation across our company, and surplus properties are no exception. We recently supported work underway at the University of Toronto to develop enhanced microbes that eat hydrocarbons in the soil.

Regardless of whether the approach is removing and replacing soil, using traditional methods to treat soil on site or deploying enhanced contaminant-eating microbes - our goal is always to return surplus properties back into productive use.

Spotlight

Solutions are never black and Whyte

The property at 105 St. and Whyte Ave. in Edmonton was home to an Esso-branded retail station since the 1920s. Today, it is home to Raymond Block – a six-storey luxury, mixed-use residential development – and the first mixed use, mid-rise LEED Platinum project in Canada.

Our people

Our Environmental and Property Solutions (E&PS) team oversees surplus properties. The team is made up of approximately 60 employees with backgrounds in engineering, environmental science, agrology and business, and who are passionate about the work they do.

“My career has taken me throughout Canada over nearly 20 years, and certainly the most interesting part of my work has been the people. Managing environmental site remediation projects, and working with the surrounding communities to make positive impacts and improvements on land has been interesting and rewarding work.”