TORONTO – The price of oil has been on a steady climb all year, but the talk at Canada’s biggest oil and gas conference is still focused on spending discipline.
Industry leaders at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers conference, held in Toronto this year, have been emphasizing their predictability and focus on returning money to shareholders, rather than talk of growth.
Suncor chief executive Rich Kruger says his goal is to make the company “consistently and boringly excellent,” so that there are no surprises for investors.
Kruger, who was appointed head of Canada’s largest oil and gas producer last year, says he’s been working to simplify the company’s operations, and fix past mistakes based on faulty assumptions.
That’s especially the case at the Fort Hills oilsands project, which he says had some design issues because it was built for a world of resource scarcity, where production growth was synonymous with value growth.
Even with oil up about US$15 per barrel so far this year to US$85, industry leaders at the conference have been emphasizing that they no longer see production growth as so deeply tied to value, and that each added barrel has to be weighed against returning money to shareholders.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 9, 2024.
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