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Suncor Energy Inc. (SU)

Q2 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Jul 30, 2015

$66.90

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to the Suncor's Second Quarter 2015 Financial Results Call and Webcast. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Steve Douglas, Vice President, Investor Relations. Mr. Douglas, please go ahead.

Steve Douglas - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Well, thank you, Melanie, and good morning to everyone. Thank you for joining us. Welcome to Suncor Energy's Q2 earnings call. With me here in Calgary are Steve Williams, our President and Chief Executive Officer, together with Alister Cowan, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Just before we begin, I would underline for you that our comments today will contain forward-looking information, and actual results may differ materially from expected results due to various factors, and these are described in our second quarter earnings release and our Annual Information Form, both of these are available on SEDAR, EDGAR and our website suncor.com. Certain financial measures that we refer to are not prescribed by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles in Canada. For a description of these financial measures, again, please see our second quarter earnings release. After our formal remarks, we'll open the call to questions, first from the investment community and then if time permits from the media. With that, I'll hand it over to Steve Williams. Steven W. Williams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Steve. And good morning and thanks to everyone on the line for joining us. I am delighted to share Suncor's strong Q2 results and to have the opportunity to provide some color on what I think is a very successful quarter. During the past few years, we've talked repeatedly about three key focus areas for Suncor, operational excellence, capital discipline, and profitable growth. In the second quarter, despite a very challenging macroeconomic environment, we delivered on our commitment in these areas. And let me give you some highlights. Operational excellence is all about steadily improving reliability and reducing costs, and we've talked about the plan to get to 90% throughput on our Oil Sands upgrading conflict by 2017. In 2012, we anticipated…

Steve Douglas - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Well, thanks, Alister and thank you, Steve. Just a few notes before we go to Q&A. On LIFO, FIFO with rising crude and product prices, we had a positive after-tax impact of $235 million in the quarter and year-to-date, that puts us at positive $65 million. The impact of the U.S. Canadian dollar was actually a positive this quarter of $178 million but year-to-date, it is a net expense of $762 million. Stock-based comp was a net cost to us of $5 million in the quarter after tax, bring the year-to-date cost to $98 million after tax. As both Steve and Alister mentioned, we did update our guidance on a number of front – fronts rather. The highlights are as follows. E&P production forecast has been adjusted to reflect the strong performance in the North Sea as well as the extended maintenance on the East Coast. The net result is 10,000 barrel a day increase to the guidance range for the overall company. We've also adjusted the sales mix forecast at Oil Sands as a result of exceptional upgrading performance year-to-date. We've raised the synthetic crude oil sales range by 15,000 barrels a day to 330,000 barrels a day. And of course, we've made an offsetting reduction in bitumen sales. As we mentioned earlier on the call, we (17:57) with our capital spend and we have reduced the guidance range by $400 million taking us to $5.8 billion to $6.4 billion for the year. Finally, we've reduced the range for Oil Sands cash cost reflecting the very strong first half of the year. The range is now $28 to $31 a barrel. There are few other minor changes around tax rates and you can find the full updated guidance on our website at suncor.com. With that, I'll turn it over to Melanie to begin the questions.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We will now take questions from the telephone lines. The first question is from Phil Gresh of JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Phil M. Gresh - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JP Morgan. Please go ahead

Hi, good morning. Congratulations on exceptional result there. First question is just on the CapEx reductions, how should we think about this in the context of your longer term sustaining capital requirements? Is this a reduction related to better management of growth capital? Is it a reduction in the sustaining capital requirements? Maybe just talk about how you think about those sustaining capital requirements. I think maybe the old number was something around $3.5 billion run rate in 2015. Steven W. Williams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Phil. Yeah, no real changes. I mean what we're seeing is this year's capital reductions were from all classes if you like. We were able to get more efficient on the capital spend both on the sustaining and the major projects in execution. We were also able to take the projects at the bottom of our priority list and deferred some of those (20:16). So it's a mixture of impacts. Sustaining capital has come down and should stay down, and that's been a journey we've been on over a few years as we've been working to improve the reliability by getting to a highest standard of our asset maintenance. And that's clearly been working and that cycle is starting to come to an end. So I would think of – and I know when we've been on the road, we've given numbers and that's sort of $3.5 billion, $4.5 billion to sustain capital of the existing assets depending on whether we're in a big turnaround here or a smaller turnaround here. And those numbers are good. The only footnote I would put on it, we are still continuing to see overall deflation in costs, particularly around labor and commodities. And although it's not a perfect number, if you just look at second quarter 2014 to 2015, you see an 18% reduction on costs, which is so reflective of some of the deflation we're seeing.

Phil M. Gresh - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JP Morgan. Please go ahead

Sure. Okay. Got it. And then the second question just on the buybacks, obviously great to see the dividend coverage, the buybacks being reinstituted. Maybe you could just put this in the context of your broader thinking around capital allocation between return of capital versus growth and – obviously, the opportunity to return capital continues to increase with each passing year and with (21:56) coming on and growth capital potentially coming down. So maybe just where do you stand on that thinking on a multi-year basis? Steven W. Williams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. And let me go back again to some of the messages we've been putting out. We have a very rich suite of opportunities, organic opportunities there. We have potential – I'll go out in that sort of two-year, five-year, 10-year timeframe. We've got great opportunities in Oil Sands around both – when Fort Hills comes on, more emphasis on in situ development, lots of opportunities. We've got a debottleneck at Firebag, a debottleneck at MacKay River and then we've got a – this replication strategy which is a 10-year, 15-year development program of the in situ resources. So lots of opportunities there. We've also got significant opportunities in our conventional E&P business, and we've been lining those up. We've got Hebron coming on in, in 2017, but beyond that, we still have the opportunities we've talked about in the past where we've been working with Shell and Conoco in the Shelburne Basin, and with Exxon and Conoco in the Flemish Pass. And we've got some things over in the North Sea as well. So lots of growth opportunities there within our ownership for development. What we've always done with capital is okay, well, what's the best use of this cash and we've been…

Phil M. Gresh - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JP Morgan. Please go ahead

And how do you think about – what the gross target would be perhaps in terms of volume growth? Steven W. Williams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: We think plus and minus on 5% is a good number through the period, so you will see 5% year-on-year through to 2020 and beyond.

Phil M. Gresh - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JP Morgan. Please go ahead

Okay. Thanks. I'll turn it over.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The following question is from Guy Baber of Simmons. Please go ahead. Guy Allen Baber - Simmons & Company International: Good morning, everybody. And congrats on another strong quarter. I was hoping we could dig a little bit deeper on the CapEx front, but obviously, you all have the track record now of driving CapEx lower, given the focus on capital discipline in 2015 is consistently trended down. So the question is on the specific read-through to 2016 just wondering how much of those savings are permanent versus perhaps getting shifted around and into 2016. And could you talk through some of the drivers of 2016 CapEx, so we can better frame our expectations? I know you have the turnaround next year and then Fort Hills will hit peak spending, but any another detail that you could provide, that will help us understand how CapEx moves from 2015 into 2016, would be very helpful. And then I have a follow-up. Steven W. Williams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. I mean, great questions there, but very tough to be specific in terms of numbers. But I think I can give you some clear indications. So a significant part of the CapEx reductions are deflation, and our reliable operation means that we're able to plan our maintenance and when we get there, there is less of it. So those are sustainable cost reductions into the future. We haven't set or guided on capital for 2016 yet, but my expectation from the first round of reviews I've taken, are that will be in the $6.5 billion to $7.5 billion range. Included in that will be a fully funded Fort Hills and fully funded Hebron development, and both of those projects are towards the peak of their expenditure in…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The following question is from Benny Wong of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Benny C. K . Wong - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Yeah, thanks. Apologies if you mentioned in your prepared remarks, but can you provide color around your renewed normal course issuer bid, is there any target pace you guys are thinking, or any kind of ways you guys plan on approaching that? Alister Cowan - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, Benny. It's Alister. You'll have seen that we have filed for $500 million. This was a TSX renewal. The pace that we expect to be buying back is by $250 million over the next six months. Benny C. K . Wong - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Great. Thanks. And just regards to that asset swap you guys are engaged in, are you able to quantify any savings or efficiencies that you guys are going to get from owning those assets? Thanks. Steven W. Williams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I mean a simple answer is, we're not planning to, and the reason is because it's complex, very complex. The way you should think about it is, it's part of the drive to improve reliability. If you think about that operational excellence journey, the first part of the journey was about the things which we had in our ownership, making sure they were very well maintained, very well operated and performing as well as they could do. That journey is very successful, still more to come. We then said, okay, well, what is our next highest priority item, and it was third-party reliability, so electrical facilities into our plan and all of the service industry around us. So the first one we looked at last year was the sulphur…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The following question is from Paul Cheng of Barclays. Please go ahead.

Paul Y. Cheng - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Please go ahead

Hey, Steve. Good morning. Several years (36:40) you start off with the journey and then coming up with the debottleneck opportunity outlook (36:45), then at the time, 100,000 barrels per day and by now, you've probably fully recognized it. While that you're looking at the (36:53-36:58). My question is that, when you're looking at your existing asset, your base, is all the debottleneck opportunity pretty much are already captured at this point or that does actually far more there to go? (37:10) Steven W. Williams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. I don't want to – I'm going to answer your question Paul. But I don't like sound too clichéd, but it is a journey. So the reason we came out with the 100,000 barrels a day was not because that was an accurate number, but because it put some scale around it and it enabled you guys to be able to compare it to the size of some of the growth steps. I think at the beginning, there was serious skepticism around whether we could achieve it, understandably so because it was multiple small steps that added up to it. As you say, we are well on our way to achieving that 100,000 barrels a day and I think now, it started to be built into models and expectations. There is more to come. It's also an iterative process. So the two – I'll just give you two examples of the next stages. Firebag, we've identified a clear debottleneck approach there that we're in the process of finalizing the details on now. But we've got it in order to be able to define we needed to get the plant up to its operating limits. We've got the plant up there and we've had it up as you know above 190,000 barrels a day. We've now been able to identify the next (38:39). So there is a very good brownfield debottleneck low cost type project there that we will be bringing forward. We haven't finished on the upgraders. I've always said because of our poor performance if you go back, there was a great opportunity for us to get it up into the mid-90%s. But there was nothing particular about 95% or 100%; in fact, we could identify some opportunities lower than forecast (39:11) develop those facilities. Those are starting to become clear to us as we operate regularly up in the mid-90%s now. So I would say two big areas, Firebag is one good example and further upgrading reliabilities another one, so still significantly more to come.

Paul Y. Cheng - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Please go ahead

Second question, I think this is probably for Alister. In the cash flow – say the cash flow from operation for the second quarter is now $2.1 billion but your actual cash flow from operation is more like $1.7 billion, $1.8 billion due to the change in the working capital, I know that. Alister that when we're looking out, do you think that the working capital in other area will continue to be a drag in your cash flow or that this is more you need in the first half of the year? Alister Cowan - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, Paul, the changes in working capital, I think, are probably more isolated to the first half of the year. A couple of things are really driving now. One was those prices were on top obviously of receivable balances, moved up. We have some increases in inventory, which we expect to go down in the second half of the year. So releasing cash. Prices are obviously lower now than they were in the first half (40:28) receivable balances will go down. And the other ironic thing is as we've been very successful in reducing OpEx to CapEx, ironically our payable balance is going down. So therefore that has sort of ironically increased our working capital, that one will continue as we go forward.

Paul Y. Cheng - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Please go ahead

Final question, Steve. When we looking at your conventional oil and gas, certainly, that there's a number of (40:57) coming on stream, but on the longer-term basis, is that a call basis for you or that would you at (41:03) some point to decide or make a decision whether that you want to stay in the current structure in terms of asset mix or that you just want to be more pure focus on the Oil Sand. Steven W. Williams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, thanks, Paul. And again, I would reiterate what I've said in the past. The E&P business is a low cost, very cash generative business which maintains with the projects we've got in flight, its current level of production through to the early mid-2020s. So it's a great business to have in our portfolio. And of course, we have been reminded recently of the importance of having some diversity in the company's businesses, as well as we've seen some question around new government policy in Alberta. So it's served us very well. And it is serving us very well now. I think the question is bang on though. If you look at the core of Suncor, the core of Suncor is Oil Sands integrated to the market. So we think the Oil Sands business is really the downstream in that sense in that it enables us to fully value our products through the cycle. So we have got questions and regularly take reviews with the board on the strategy around E&P. We're very comfortable with it. We have projects that maintain the production levels as I say, and then we've got these two other projects that we're partnered with world-class organizations off of the East Coast of Canada. So it's a really good position to be in. We asked ourselves that question. Clearly, it's a key part of our strategy going forward. But there is – it's not unusual for companies, if that business were to start to decline in the mid-2020s, clearly, there is a strategic opportunity to monetize if we want to. So we like the business, no plans to dispose it, but we regularly ask that question.

Paul Y. Cheng - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Please go ahead

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The following question is from Andrew Dranfield of RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Greg Pardy - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Thanks. Good morning. It's actually Greg Pardy. Steve, just a couple of questions and fire-ups, follow-ups more than anything else. With respect to the Firebag debottleneck, how large do you think that could be yours that just not been determined? Steven W. Williams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: We haven't completely defined it. Yeah, but we think it's in the 20,000 barrels a day range growth.

Greg Pardy - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Okay. Fantastic. And then just with respect to Fort Hills, you got a $1.5 billion contingency in there. Just given the environment that we are in now, things are obviously looking better from a cost perspective. Is it your sense that you're going to be releasing that as you move through 2016 and into 2017? Steven W. Williams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: The project is in really good shape. I spent the day up at Fort Hills on Friday last week and they're making tremendous progress. You're right. In total, we have about $1.5 billion of contingency. It's largely unused. The only pressure we've seen on it has been around currency. And there are – as a corporation, there are puts and takes around currency and we tend to mitigate an awful lot of that because of the integrated nature of the company. So there is some small traction around foreign exchange, which is a relatively small proposition. Other than that, we have not consumed the contingency. So it's a little bit too early. We're currently at 34% completion on the project. By the end of this year, we will be close to 50% complete. So what I have said to the project guys is, (45:11) contingency on a regular basis and next year, I want to take a look as to whether we actually remove some of that contingency and give it back. Indications at the moment are very good, but I would say it's a little bit too early. So what I would say is if you think historically of what happened around (45:35) project is they tended to blow out on cost and schedule. Our strategy on this project was we focus on quality and cost and the schedule will be, what the schedule will be but will be the optimum way of spending the capital. We still maintain those priorities and we're actually on all three, quality, cost, and schedule. So I think the right time to take that debate is probably in 2016. So we'll update you then.

Greg Pardy - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Okay. Fantastic. And just the last question and it's a loaded question obviously. But if more Fort Hills were to become available, is that something you would look at or are you comfortable with your 41% interest now? Steven W. Williams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I would go back to the original strategy. I mean, clearly I won't comment on rumors. But if you look at the original strategy, the reason we joint ventured and it was one of the first joint ventures that Suncor had gone into of this scale was to spread the risk. And a lot of that was execution risk. As we move forward on this project. When I look at allocating capital, I can only allocate capital on a forward basis, I can't change the past per se. So when I look on a cash flow return going forward (47:05) Fort Hills get more and more attractive as you get near to the project, because you have this 52 year (47:13) started up. So it is a more attractive project as you get close to it. We have no plans at the moment, but we're very – the partners are strongly supporting the project, we're very encouraged by the way it's going, so you will not see us pulling back on the execution of the project.

Greg Pardy - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Okay. Fantastic. Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The following question is from Nick Lupick of AltaCorp. Please go ahead.

Nick Lupick - AltaCorp Capital, Inc.

Analyst · AltaCorp. Please go ahead

Just had a quick question about the Montreal coker expansion, we haven't talked about in a little while. I guess more specifically in terms of the timing when you expect to sanction that project and also could you give us an indication of how you're thinking about it in terms of size? And I guess what I mean by that is more – when you look at it on a strategic level, how you're thinking about being fully integrated on a one for one basis or whether or not you want to become long bitumen eventually, given that we have Fort Hills coming online in 20 months or 24 months or so? Steven W. Williams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. Yeah. In fact – let me start at distance and talk about how we think the continent turns out in terms of supply, demand balance and that will give you the background for our thinking on the Montreal coker, so a few comments. Firstly, our view is, and it has been – it was why we shut the Voyageur upgrader project down is our view is in the long run, the continent has probably peaked in terms of overall demand for products, so very likely to see new refineries unless some sort of incentivization for those to be build. The balance of crude is likely to be long, light, and sweet crude, and short, heavy crudes. For that reason, over time, we see ourselves moving more towards heavy products rather than upgrading which is effectively a light sweeter crude. So in the long run, we see – the advantage we've had from integration will be diluted as time goes on. The extent to which you would be willing to pay to protect that decreases in our view…

Nick Lupick - AltaCorp Capital, Inc.

Analyst · AltaCorp. Please go ahead

Perfect. Great color. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The following question is from Mike Dunn of FirstEnergy. Please go ahead.

Michael P. Dunn - FirstEnergy Capital Corp.

Analyst · FirstEnergy. Please go ahead

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Couple of questions. So I'll start with the – I think you pronounced it the easy technology was the solvent and the radio frequency that you've started up here recently, commercial test. Can you just comment on what's – maybe some more specifics about what you saw with the original pilot? And then, I think in your slide deck, you talk about potentially looking out at commercial size phase in 2017, maybe just talk about that a bit, and then I have a question about your offshore assets after that. Steven W. Williams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. Yeah, not too many comments to make. Mike, we see technology as being a very important part of the future for Oil Sands. Our target, and we've been talking about it as an industry, not just as Suncor, has been to get Oil Sands on par with conventional crude in terms of its carbon footprint, particularly its energy input. And Fort Hills and Kearl are hitting those targets. So we're then looking at the next generation of technology and in situ and the – of course, the key to the value in technology is, first of all, to develop the technology, but secondly, to have the suite of projects that you can then commercialize it on. That's the importance of the multi-phase replication we're talking about through the 2020s. We're very encouraged by what we're seeing on the solvent technology, and still hopeful that we can effectively move to almost a water-free extraction of that Bitumen through an in situ type process. So, very encouraged and that's why we're working so hard on the new technology. Radio frequency, again, good news. I mean we've been trying it for a number of years at various locations, and when you've got a mine and you've got that technology, you do have the opportunity to try it and be able to see some of the results of it. So very encouraged with the way that's going. And one of the things we're reflecting on now is the extent to which we build in the capability to use those new technologies at some stage through that replication rollout process. So my summary would be, technology is important, we're really keen to work on it, and we have the capital program to commercialize it.

Michael P. Dunn - FirstEnergy Capital Corp.

Analyst · FirstEnergy. Please go ahead

Thanks, Steve. And then on the offshore assets, maybe a question, I have asked this before, but on Buzzard, strong volumes in the quarter. Has anything changed your outlook on, I guess, the previous outlook, that declines would be kicking in imminently here? Is that sort of put back 6 months to 9 months, or is there anything else you've learned there, and then just wondering if there is an update on the Hibernia South project, I think you mentioned some drilling delays at Hibernia this year.

Steve Douglas - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Hey, Mike. It's Steve Douglas here. On Buzzard, I wouldn't say it's changed, we actually – some maintenance was deferred. And we have actually seen the beginning, if you like, of declines there. But with decreased maintenance in the field this year, we will outperform guidance, and that's reflected in the fact that we've increased the guidance range. It's also reflective of the fact that Golden Eagle actually ramped up a little more quickly than we had anticipated. But no, going forward here, you will see declines, certainly in 2016 in Buzzard. As far as South Hibernia goes, yeah, there were some drilling delays. So the production that we were expecting to see come on at South Hibernia, you won't see reflected till the very tail end of the year and into 2016.

Michael P. Dunn - FirstEnergy Capital Corp.

Analyst · FirstEnergy. Please go ahead

Thank you, Steve. That's all for me.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The following question is from Ashok Dutta of Platts. Please go ahead. Your line is now open. If you're using a speaker phone, please lift up the handset or unmute your line.

Ashok Dutta - Platts, Inc.

Analyst · Platts. Please go ahead. Your line is now open. If you're using a speaker phone, please lift up the handset or unmute your line

Hi.

Operator

Operator

Please go ahead.

Ashok Dutta - Platts, Inc.

Analyst · Platts. Please go ahead. Your line is now open. If you're using a speaker phone, please lift up the handset or unmute your line

Hi. Sorry, I lost you there. Actually my question has been answered, so thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The following question is from Chester Dawson of Wall Street Journal. Please go ahead.

Chester Dawson - The Wall Street Journal

Analyst · Wall Street Journal. Please go ahead

Yes, hi. Thanks for taking media questions. Just two questions. First, Steve, could you please provide the average second quarter supply cost per barrel? And secondly, a more broad question about M&A. You've got a lot of dry powder, lot of cash, and asset prices are falling across the industry. Are you any more interested in M&A opportunities now than you were, say, a year ago? Steven W. Williams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Chester, Let me take the second one and then the guys will give you a quick answer on the first one. Just generally, I mean we look at all uses of capital, and you've heard me earlier in the call talk about the rich suite of organic opportunities we have. We've also talked about the willingness particular, these very low prices to buy our stock back. Clearly, the third thing, which is competing for that capital is other external opportunities. And just generally speaking, because we have such good opportunities within the company, we haven't been aggressive in looking outside. We do take a look at all of the opportunities. Our view was that the prices were still too high and the natural choices we looked at were – we were not prepared to pay the prices for. Clearly, time is going on, they've move down and there are better opportunities there. We still got nothing really to talk about. We look at the opportunities, we asses that versus internally use of cash and share buybacks, but nothing particular to talk about today.

Steve Douglas - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Just on the supply cost, Chester, I mean as you know, we do give a cash cost which declined to $28 this quarter for Oil Sands bringing the total for year-to-date to $28.20. If you factor in our overall – the 20% of our production which comes from offshore, the overall cash cost of the business is getting down into the $27 range.

Steve Douglas - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

And with that, I see we are over timed. So Melanie, we will – that will be the last question. I'd like to thank everyone for participating. I know it's a very, very busy day of releases. But we will be available as always throughout the day along with controllers. So please feel free to contact us directly with more detailed questions. Thank you, folks, and I'll sign off.

Operator

Operator

The conference has now ended. Please disconnect your lines at this time. We thank you for your participation.