Canada oil sands Q4 2021: steaming through the deep freeze Report

Insight 07 March 2022

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Report summary

Even with a deep freeze in weather over December and early January, most oil sands operators managed to continue to pump record volumes of bitumen and generate red hot earnings in Q4 2021. Rises in global benchmarks led to modest improvements in Canadian benchmark WCS, and in Q4 price realizations, which were up slightly on average. Strong operating performance for most operators continued in Q4, with many projects exceeding previous peaks. Large Canadian operators continued to return excess capital to shareholders in the quarter through a mixture of dividends and share buybacks, and continued the balance sheet improvement with significant debt retirement.

Executive summary
Benchmark crude prices
- WCS price performance
- Bitumen and SCO realised prices
Oil sands production
- In situ production
- Mining production
Other topics
- Earnings, shareholder capital return, debt reduction, & investment
- Share repurchases
- Dividends
- Debt reduction
- Investment