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Suncor Energy Inc. is aiming to increase its oil output next year by up to five per cent, as it continues to work to improve its performance and lower costs from its oilsands assets.
In its corporate guidance for 2025, released Thursday, the Calgary-based energy giant said it plans to grow its total oil and gas production to between 810,000 and 840,000 barrels per day next year, up from its 2024 estimated range of 770,000 to 810,000 barrels per day.
The company said its capital expenditure budget for 2025 is between $6.1 billion and $6.3 billion, down from between $6.3 and $6.5 billion in 2024.
Suncor's financial performance has been improving under the leadership of CEO Rich Kruger, who was hired in 2023 to turn the company's fortunes around after a spate of operational challenges and workplace safety incidents.
Suncor is also benefiting from the opening earlier this year of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, which has enabled oilsands producers to boost output due to the additional export capacity the pipeline offers.
The company said it is aiming to add more than 100,000 barrels per day of oil and gas production between 2023 and 2026.
Several other Canadian oilsands producers also announced plans Thursday to deliver production growth in 2025.
Imperial Oil Ltd. released its corporate guidance calling for production to grow to between 433,000 and 456,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, which works out to a growth rate of approximately three per cent year-over-year.
Cenovus Energy Inc. forecast Thursday a 2025 production increase of approximately four per cent compared with 2024, to an estimated range of between 805,000 and 845,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
Canadian crude oil production hit an all-time record in 2023, at 5.1 million barrels per day, as companies ramped up in anticipation of the Trans Mountain expansion's startup. Analysts have suggested that total could increase by as much as 500,000 barrels per day on average this year, though final 2024 figures are not yet available.
In light of the growing production, the government of Alberta — Canada's main oil-producing province — has said it is looking for ways to encourage pipeline companies to boost capacity and increase the province's oil and gas export volumes to the United States.
But Canada's oil industry also faces the challenge of reducing its greenhouse gas footprint, in the face of the climate crisis and the federal government's pledge to cap emissions from the oil and gas sector at 35 to 38 per cent below 2019 levels by 2030.
The industry has said such a target is the equivalent to a cap on production, and would result in job losses and economic harm.
Environmentalists say there is no way that Canada can continue to grow its oil and gas production and still meet its climate targets.
Oilsands companies have jointly pitched a massive carbon capture project through an industry consortium called the Pathways Alliance, a project they say will help them achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
The Pathways Alliance has not yet made a final decision to go ahead with the project.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 12, 2024.
Companies in this story: (TSX:SU, TSX:IMO, TSX:CVE)
Comments
Quote: "Oilsands companies have jointly pitched a massive carbon capture project through an industry consortium called the Pathways Alliance, a project they say will help them achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. "
Who do they think they are fooling with their carbon capture stall tactic? Most projects in the EU failed to deliver or delivered way less than promised. Carbon capture is a smoke, and mirrors stall tactic by the ol & gas industry. Those in the industry promising their achievement will be long gone to even be accountable.
"Environmentalists say there is no way that Canada can continue to grow its oil and gas production and still meet its climate targets."
Sadly, I thoroughly doubt that the fossil fuel industry could give a damn what anybody thinks, least of all environmentalists.
Did I mention that I am sick of their public greenwashing campaign that never stops.
How they still get away with blurring the line between fiction and truth is beyond me.
How they manage to turn some people's minds into putty isn't.
All it takes is the vast sums of money in their war chest, and willing political stooges working for their causes like Trump, Poilievre, Smith and Moe who preach from the same songbook - "We need this / them folks. It's for your own good. Trust us."
Going forward, any industry with mega plans and no proven track record for delivering the goods needs to be told, politely but definitively: NO PUBLIC MONEY GOES INTO YOUR PIPE DREAMS. You think its a good idea?? Find private investors.
Can't find enough private fantasists??? Drop the idea, its obviously not a winner. But then we all know that don't we??? Carbon Capture is a delay tactic, which, even if it worked...still has to lay pipe to those rare places capable of containing a gas in perpetuity. More often, as we see in the U.S. mid west, if we care to do half an hour's research........its piped to underperforming pump jacks.............and injected into the well for EOR...that's enhanced oil recovery.
For those of us still hopeful about industry capturing carbon instead of releasing it into the atmosphere: it's one more Shell game....one more plan to suck up public money until we're all broke and there's nothing left we can do to prevent hot house earth.
We need to stop dreaming, and seriously, work together on a just transition off fossil fuels.