Imperial Oil said it has approved a $2-billion expansion of the company’s Cold Lake operation in northeastern Alberta.

The expansion, called Nabiye, will add more than 40,000 barrels per day in production at the Cold Lake project. The project will access 280 million barrels of recoverable reserves and is expected to start-up by year-end 2014.

The Nabiye expansion will include development of a new steam generation and bitumen-processing plant, field production pads and associated facilities. As with any large and long-life asset, sustaining capital to support the continued operation will be required over the asset life.

Imperial’s Cold Lake facility is the largest and longest-running in situ oil sands operation in Canada, and includes four steam generation and bitumen production plants. The operation produced an average of 160,000 barrels of bitumen per day in 2011.