ÈȵãºÚÁÏ

CALGARY, ALTA. – The chief executive of Suncor Energy Inc. says it delivered record production during the fourth quarter of 2025 despite mucky conditions in northeastern Alberta that caused problems for at least one of its oilsands peers. 

Total upstream production was 909,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day during the three months ended Dec. 31, up from 875,000 during the same period a year earlier. The result included 178,200 barrels per day from its Fort Hills mine north of Fort McMurray, Alta., up from 161,700 a year earlier. 

Soggy conditions during the quarter had no bearing on Suncor’s ability to operate, CEO Rich Kruger told analysts on a conference call recently.

“We run an outdoor business. We mine. We mine come hell or high water — wet, dry, cold, hot. And we’ve got to design and operate for that and maintain our assets,” he said. 

“So when it rains, we put on raincoats. When it’s cold, we’d put on mittens.”

The autonomous haul trucks Suncor uses at its mines are equipped with technology that enables them to operate in “mud mode,” said Peter Zebedee, Suncor’s executive vice-president for oilsands. 

“Essentially it reduces the slippage and stoppage of the autonomous trucks in soft conditions,” he said, adding a new iteration of the technology — “mud mode 2.0” — is coming this spring. 

Making sure the roads the haul trucks traverse are in good shape is a top priority, Kruger said. 

“Haul roads are to mining like tracks are to a rail company. You have to design, operate and maintain them exceptionally because they’re … the arteries of your ability to sustain,” he said. 

Fellow oilsands operator Imperial Oil Ltd. saw a drop in production at its flagship Kearl mine during the fourth quarter due to “exceptionally wet” conditions, CEO John Whelan said last week. 

“We experienced more rain in a few days in October than we typically get all summer. So it was a significant event,” he said. 

“That impacted the mobility of the equipment in the mine, and it delayed accessing high quality ore that we had planned to get to. Unfortunately, it took a little time to recover from that.” 

At Suncor, refineries also beat records, operating at 108 per cent of their official capacity during the quarter. The plants have routinely been exceeding what they were designed to handle thanks to efficiency improvements. 

Internally, Suncor has acknowledged its refining network is capable of processing more than its “nameplate” capacity of 466,000 barrels a day, Kruger said, and the company is contemplating when and how to start reflecting a higher figure in its financial reporting. 

“We need to think about when we go externally and say, ‘OK, the new denominator is x,’ because we don’t want anybody to miss the memo when we do that and a year from now say, ‘Well, … they were 103 per cent in 2025 and now they’re only 97 per cent. Man, their performance went down,'” Kruger said. 

“But we know as we continue to be north of 100 per cent, at some point in time, we have to come clean on what is the real capacity of this network.”

Operating revenues, net of royalties, were $12.04 billion for the period, down from $12.53 billion. 

©2025 The Canadian Press