(Bloomberg) -- Cnooc Ltd. was granted permission to resume operation of its long-shuttered Long Lake oil sands upgrader amid a report that the company may exit Canada. 

The Alberta Energy Regulator approved the company’s application, filed five months ago, to start an upgrader that was shut after a fatal explosion in early 2016. Cnooc must submit a timeline for the restart and the plant will be limited to processing no more than 22,400 cubic meters (141,000 barrels) a day of oil sands bitumen, according to an AER document. The company plans to resume operation of the vacuum tower by the end of 2022 or early 2023, according to a separate document submitted to the regulator last month. An email to Cnooc for comment wasn’t immediately returned. 

The approval comes as Cnooc -- China’s biggest offshore driller -- is preparing to exit operations in the U.K., Canada and the U.S. amid concern the assets could be subject to sanctions, Reuters reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. Restarting the upgrader would allow Long Lake to produce a lighter, more expensive form of crude oil at a time when the company is expanding the site to generate nearly 100,000 barrels a day. The upgrader converts a thick, sticky type of crude called bitumen into a more valuable, lighter one.

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