08:33 AM EDT, 08/02/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Imperial Oil ( IMO ) edged up in premarket New York trading after it said on Friday its second-quarter profit rose 68% on higher oil prices and production from its oil-sands projects in northern Alberta.

Imperial Oil ( IMO ) also said it will speed up the repurchase of 5% of its outstanding shares.

The company, 70%-owned by Exxon Mobil ( XOM ) , said it earned $1.13 billion, or $2.11 per share, in the period, up from $675 million, or $1.15, in the year-prior quarter. Cash flow rose 84% to $1.63 billion from $885 million.

Revenue was up 13% to $13.38 billion from $11.82 billion.

Imperial said the improved performance came on higher output from the company's oil-sands operations, where output rose 11% t0 404,000 barrels per day from 363,000 a year earlier. Its average price per barrel of oil-sands bitumen rose 21% to $83.02 per barrel.

"Imperial's second quarter results are underpinned by strong operations across our businesses, including the safe and successful completion of several major turnarounds,"With the majority of upstream turnaround activity behind us, we are well positioned for strong production in the second half of the year," Chief Executive Brad Corson said in a release. "The company said throughput from its three refineries was flat from the second-quarter of 2023 at 387,000 barrels per day."

Imperial also said it plans to accelerate share buybacks under its normal-course issuer bid. The company in June renewed the program to repurchase and cancel up to 26.79-million shares over next 12 months. However it now plans to repurchase all the allowed shares by year end.

The company's shares were last seen up US$0.04 to US$69.15 in premarket trade. They closed down $2.95 to $95.96 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.