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Oct 28 (Reuters) - Imperial Oil Ltd IMO.TO , Canada's No.2 integrated oil producer and refiner, reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit as it continued to cut costs in the wake of lower oil prices.
The company's upstream unit cash costs averaged less than $20 per barrel year to date, Chief Executive Rich Kruger said on Friday.
Third quarter upstream unit cash costs declined by more than 35 percent since 2014, Kruger said.
Imperial Oil said it continued to evaluate the scope of future investments in the light of overall market and business conditions.
The company's quarterly production marginally increased by nearly 2 percent to 393,000 gross oil-equivalent barrels per day.
Imperial Oil, 69.6 percent owned by Exxon Mobil Corp (NYSE:XOM) XOM.N , said net income jumped to C$1 billion ($746.60 million), or C$1.18 per share, in the third quarter, from C$479 million, or 56 Canadian cents per share, a year earlier. company's quarterly profit more than doubled due to a C$716 million gain from the sale of some of its retail sites.
The sale of retail sites for C$2.8 billion, announced in the first quarter, is expected to close by the end of the year.
Quarterly adjusted net income was 34 Canadian cents per share, higher than the analysts' average estimate of 31 Canadian cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Total revenue and other income rose 4 percent to C$7.44 billion. ($1 = 1.3394 Canadian dollars)