Imperial Oil closing Dartmouth, N.S., refinery

HALIFAX — Up to 400 jobs are in the air after Imperial Oil announced it will be converting its 95-year-old oil and gas refinery in Dartmouth, N.S., into a distribution terminal.

"We recognize that this was difficult news for the local community to hear. We have been at this for more than a year and we tried everything we could," Pius Rolheiser, spokesman Imperial Oil, said Wednesday. "This refinery has been in operation since 1918. Despite all of our best efforts, we weren't able to keep it operating as a refinery."

Officials say that even if a west-to-east pipeline moving Alberta bitumen to refineries on the Atlantic coast comes to pass, the elderly Dartmouth refinery's pots and kettles were designed to handle lighter crudes, from the North Atlantic and South America, not the heavier oilsands.

Many workers will be able to stay on after Imperial retrofits, the company said, but could not provide exact numbers. Others will be offered jobs within Imperial elsewhere.

"I'm disappointed and upset when I hear that a business of any kind leaves Atlantic Canada or leaves Canada," Defence Minister and Nova Scotia MP Peter MacKay told QMI. "I know that there are important discussions still taking place about the routing of pipelines and the opportunity to refine out own natural resources in Canada."

Imperial Oil says the plant will continuing refining oil until late this year and the changes will not affect supplies to its Esso gas stations.