The giant blades, driver -free trucks and a robot as a dog have helped companies with the oil faces of Canada, including Imperial Oil and Suncor, become some of the lowest petroleum producers of lower cost of North America, driving above the general expenses even when the worst inflation in a generation pushed the schist costs of the US.
As the global oil industry enters a recession due to economic uncertainty related to the policy of US tariffs and OPEC+ pumping more barrels, the Canadian oil sand industry is in a strength position.
In the years after the 2014-15 oil price clash, international oil specialties, including BP, Chevron and Total, sold their interests in Canadian oil sands.
At that time, they classified Canadian operations as among their most expensive projects and, therefore, less profitable, worldwide.
They directed their capital to a cheaper oil production and favored the American schist for their time and faster drilling returns.
Since then, new technologies and cost reduction efforts have promoted a significant improvement in industry competitiveness, which makes oil tankers among cheapest producers, according to a dozen industry experts and a reuters analysis of the latest profits of the US and Canadian company.
While American shale companies are responding to the recession of this year’s oil price when leaving the platforms, reducing capital spending and firefightering, the oil strength position of the tankers means that Canadian companies have not made practically changes in their production plans or spending announced previously announced.
Alberta is preparing for what US tariffs on Canadian energy will do to the oil and gas industry. Experts say the sector will feel the impacts through higher costs and job losses immediately.
Some Canadian politicians are now asking for a new raw pipe from Alberta to the Pacific coast, as part of a broader effort to strengthen the country’s economy against US tariff threats.
The lowest crude oil prices this year have little impact on the Canadian oil sector, said CEO of Cenovus, Jon McKenzie, in an interview earlier this year.
“This is an industry that has become much more resistant over time,” he said.
In an example, two four -legged robots, each nicknamed in the place due to its similar appearance to its dog, the vast operation of Lake Lake 45 years of Imperial in Alberta, performing inspections and maintenance of routine equipment, such as optimizations of heat exchangers and monitoring of the oil/water tanks interface.
The places release human workers for another job and save Imperial $ 30 million a year, said the company.
Imperial, owned by Exxon, and its Competitor Suncor has also changed to self -employed mining vehicles, eliminating the need to hire conductors to transport oil mineral.
The switch has improved the productivity of oil output in the Karel Petroleros Mine of Imperial by 20 percent since 2023, the company said.
Suncor operates a 900 tons truck in its Fort Hills operation north of Fort McMurray, high., That the company said it is the world’s largest hydraulic mining shovel.
The CEO of Suncor, Rich Kruger, said that the largest cube in the shovel and the most powerful excavation force offer a faster and less spill mineral load.
Oil producers have also made improvements in the reliability and performance of the equipment.
In Kearl, for example, Imperial has reduced the expenses related to the changes, a term of the industry for the expensive periods of maintenance required that often implies temporarily turning off production, at $ 100 million annually since 2021.
The company reduced the time between the changes of 12 to 24 months in 2024, and aims to extend that interval to 48 months in the future.
More than a dozen Alberta oil facilities are emitting potentially harmful air pollutants at 20 to 64 times the rate reported to the government, according to new research published in the Science magazine.
Suncor proves efforts, including the standardization of maintenance practices in mines and improve the water management of the site to obtain more production of existing assets to contribute to the reduction of $ 7 per barrel of $ 7 in its equilibrium price between western Texas Intermediate (WTI) in 2024 to $ 42.90.
This long -term approach in cost reduction means that the five largest oil companies in Canada can reach the equilibrium point, and still maintain their dividends, at WTI prices between $ 43.10 and $ 40.85, according to an analysis of the Montreal Bank for Reuters.
That means that oil producers have reduced their general costs by approximately $ 10 per barrel in approximately seven years. The oil sands had an average equilibrium price of $ 51.80/BBL between 2017 and 2019, according to BMO.
In contrast, a recent survey of the Federal Reserve of Dallas of more than 100 oil and gas companies in Texas, New Mexico and Louisiana discovered that bituminous schista oil producers need a WTI oil price of $ 65 per barrel on average to drill in a profitable way. In 2017-2019, American shale producers had a balance price between $ 50 and $ 52 per barrel.
High starting costs, but a long shelf life
Part of the reason why the oil industry has become so competitive is the nature of the extraction process. Producing thick and sticky oil found in Alberta Arenas is in some places more similar to mining than oil drilling.
Where the oil is very close to the surface, companies operate mass mines, scraping huge volumes of sand and clay and then filtering the oil.
When the oil is deeper, companies inject underground steam to loosen the deposits and then use a drilling process.
A mine of oil sands has large initial starting costs, but once it is in operation, it can work for decades with very low production rates.
Canadian natural resources, for example, at the end of 2024 had demonstrated and probable reserves that amount to 20.1 billion barrels of oil equivalent in their portfolio, giving their mining and updating assets a 43 -year -old remaining reserve life.
The company Horizon Oilsands has been producing since 2009.
The bituminous schista oil wells, on the contrary, have low starting costs.
The oil output of the wells, however, begins to decrease in a matter of months. Prices have begun to rise because after years of heavy drilling in the upper shaking fields, the most productive areas have been exhausted. The perforators are moving to the secondary areas, so they have to drill more wells to achieve the same result and that has increased costs.
Canadian oil companies have also paid the debt in the last five years, which allows them to reallocate the profits of underpinning their balances and rewarding shareholders with dividends and repurchases.
According to the Bank of Montreal, the producers of Canadian oil tankers of natural resources, Suncor, Cenovus, Imperial Oil and Meg Energy currently have a combined net debt, excluding lease liabilities, of $ 33.9 billion after paying a combined total of almost $ 22 billion in debt between 2021 and 2024.
As returns grow, the producers of Canadian oil sands are an increasingly attractive investment for those who seek to make money with the energy industry, said Kevin Burkett, portfolio manager of Burkett Asset Management, based in Vancouver.
“[Canada’s oilsands] They are not geopolitally risky, and have some very attractive characteristics about productivity and costs, “said Burkett, who has actions of Canadian Natural Resources and Cenovus in their portfolio.
