Suncor Energy Inc (SU) 2022 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good day, ladies and gentlemen and thank you for standing by and welcome to the Suncor Energy Third Quarter 2022 Results Conference (Operator Instructions) At this time, I would now like to hand the conference over to your host today, Mr. Trevor Bell, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

女士們先生們，美好的一天，感謝你們的支持，歡迎參加 Suncor Energy 2022 年第三季度業績會議（操作員說明）此時，我現在想把會議交給你們今天的主持人，Trevor Bell 先生，投資者關係副總裁。請繼續。

Thank you, operator, and good morning. Welcome to Suncor Energy's third quarter earnings call. Please note that today's comments contain forward-looking information. Actual results may differ materially from the expected results because of various risk factors and assumptions that are described in our third quarter earnings release as well as in our current annual information form both of which are available on SEDAR, EDGAR and our website suncor.com. Certain financial measures referred to in these comments are not prescribed by Canadian generally accepted accounting principles. For a description of these financial measures, please see our third quarter earnings release. We will start with comments from Kris Smith, Interim President and Chief Executive Officer; followed by Alister Cowan, Suncor's Chief Financial Officer.

謝謝接線員，早上好。歡迎來到 Suncor Energy 第三季度財報電話會議。請注意，今天的評論包含前瞻性信息。由於我們第三季度收益發布以及我們當前的年度信息表中描述的各種風險因素和假設，實際結果可能與預期結果存在重大差異，這兩者都可以在 SEDAR、EDGAR 和我們的網站 suncor.com 上找到。這些評論中提到的某些財務措施並未由加拿大公認的會計原則規定。有關這些財務措施的說明，請參閱我們的第三季度收益發布。我們將從臨時總裁兼首席執行官 Kris Smith 的評論開始；隨後是 Suncor 的首席財務官 Alister Cowan。

Also, on the call are 3 of our senior operating leaders. Peter Zebedee, Executive Vice President, Mining and Upgrading; Shelley Powell, Senior Vice President and In Situ and E&P; and Arnel Santos, Senior Vice President, Refining and Logistics. Following the formal remarks, we'll open up the call to questions. Now I'll hand it over to Kris to share his perspective on the quarter.

此外，我們的 3 位高級運營負責人正在接聽電話。採礦和升級執行副總裁 Peter Zebedee； Shelley Powell，高級副總裁兼原位和勘探與生產；和精煉與物流高級副總裁 Arnel Santos。在正式發言之後，我們將開始提問。現在我將把它交給 Kris 來分享他對本季度的看法。

Great. Thanks, Trevor. Good morning to everyone and thank you for joining us. On our last call, I discussed that achieving best-in-class safety and operational performance is Suncor's core focus and that my goal every day is to execute on our plans to drive that performance. A key element in delivering this is the focus of our senior operations leaders on driving changes through the organization to the front line. We're doing something a bit different than past calls, our 3 senior operating leaders, Peter, Shelley and Arnel are with Alister and me today to demonstrate our increased focus on this and to answer any questions you may have on operations.

偉大的。謝謝，特雷弗。大家早上好，感謝您加入我們。在我們上次通話中，我討論了實現一流的安全和運營績效是 Suncor 的核心重點，我每天的目標是執行我們的計劃以推動這一績效。實現這一目標的一個關鍵因素是我們的高級運營領導者專注於推動整個組織到一線的變革。我們正在做的事情與過去的電話會議略有不同，我們的 3 位高級運營領導者 Peter、Shelley 和 Arnel 今天與 Alister 和我一起展示我們對此的更多關注並回答您可能對運營提出的任何問題。

Now taking a brief look at the quarter. We generated $4.5 billion in adjusted funds flow from operations which included a FIFO loss in the downstream of $585 million. And as it's designed to do, our physical integration between upstream and downstream mitigated the impact of wider heavy crude differentials, delivering strong margins. Upstream boe volumes came in as expected at 724,000 barrels per day during the quarter and I expect these volumes to increase in the fourth quarter as our maintenance activities at Syncrude and base plant upgrader 1 were completed in October.

現在簡要回顧一下本季度。我們從運營中產生了 45 億美元的調整後資金流量，其中包括 5.85 億美元的下游 FIFO 損失。正如設計的那樣，我們在上游和下游之間的物理整合減輕了更廣泛的重質原油差異的影響，提供了可觀的利潤率。本季度上游原油當量如預期達到每天 724,000 桶，我預計這些產量將在第四季度增加，因為我們在 Syncrude 和基地工廠升級 1 的維護活動已於 10 月完成。

In the downstream, we have strong Q3 margins on the back of a 100% utilization rate and the third best crude refining throughput in our history. Downstream margin capture was 85%, reflecting higher-than-normal levels of processing of sweet crude in our refineries primarily due to a planned outage in the Edmonton sulfur recovery unit in the quarter. As well, we continue to see solid volumes and margins in our Sales and Marketing segment with distillate demand, in particular, continuing to be strong. During the quarter, we distributed $1.7 billion to shareholders in the form of dividends and share buybacks. Also, we successfully completed an upsized bond repurchase tender that resulted in buying back our debt below face value and lowering our structural breakeven by nearly $1 per barrel on a WTI basis. These actions keep us on track with our capital allocation framework and move us toward our goal of reducing our net debt and depending on commodity pricing, increasing capital allocation to share buybacks to 75% by the end of Q1 2023.

在下游，由於 100% 的利用率和我們歷史上第三好的原油精煉吞吐量，我們第三季度的利潤率很高。下游利潤率為 85%，反映出我們煉油廠的低硫原油加工水平高於正常水平，這主要是由於本季度埃德蒙頓硫磺回收裝置計劃停運。此外，我們繼續看到我們的銷售和營銷部門的穩定銷量和利潤率，尤其是餾分油需求繼續強勁。本季度，我們以股息和股票回購的形式向股東分配了 17 億美元。此外，我們還成功完成了大規模的債券回購招標，以低於面值的價格回購了我們的債務，並將我們的結構性盈虧平衡點降低了近 1 美元/桶（以 WTI 為基礎）。這些行動使我們與我們的資本配置框架保持一致，並使我們朝著減少淨債務和依賴商品定價的目標邁進，到 2023 年第一季度末將用於股票回購的資本配置增加到 75%。

Now my comments on the quarter today are intentionally brief because we've delivered a strong quarter in line with our expectations. Instead, the focus in my opening remarks will be on recent actions that we've taken on improving safety and optimizing our asset portfolio. Work continues across the company to improve safety and operational excellence with a particular focus on our mining and tailings operations. My priority has been to remove distractions from the organization and to focus our employees on safe, reliable operations and our biggest opportunities.

現在我對今天這個季度的評論是故意簡短的，因為我們已經按照我們的預期交付了一個強勁的季度。相反，我在開場白中的重點將放在我們最近為提高安全性和優化資產組合而採取的行動上。全公司繼續努力提高安全性和卓越運營，特別關注我們的採礦和尾礦業務。我的首要任務是消除組織的干擾，讓我們的員工專注於安全、可靠的運營和我們最大的機會。

With fresh external mining perspective and a number of leadership changes in place, we are in a position to execute and deliver on our plans at an accelerated pace. In particular, there are 3 actions I'd like to highlight today. First, I've initiated a thorough review of the makeup of our frontline workforce with a view to reduce our exposure hours, enable robust workforce planning which will allow safe work execution and improve efficiency and competitiveness.

憑藉全新的外部採礦視角和一系列領導層變動，我們能夠以更快的速度執行和交付我們的計劃。今天我要特別強調 3 個行動。首先，我已經開始對我們一線員工的構成進行全面審查，以減少我們的工作時間，實現穩健的員工規劃，從而實現安全的工作執行並提高效率和競爭力。

As part of this, we are following through on an objective to reduce our contractor workforce in our mining and operating business by 20%. As of today, more than half of this objective has already been completed and we are on track to safely achieve and sustain the full reduction by the first half of 2023. In addition to streamlining our contractor workforce, I'm also taking action to enhance our contractor management processes to ensure consistency and simplification and how we assure safe work practices in the field, and we will continue to work together with our contractors to embed industry best practices and strengthen safety culture.

作為其中的一部分，我們正在努力實現將採礦和運營業務中的承包商勞動力減少 20% 的目標。截至今天，這一目標的一半以上已經完成，我們有望在 2023 年上半年安全地實現並維持全面減排。除了精簡我們的承包商員工隊伍外，我還在採取行動加強我們的承包商管理流程確保一致性和簡化，以及我們如何確保現場安全工作實踐，我們將繼續與我們的承包商合作，以嵌入行業最佳實踐並加強安全文化。

Second, as previously mentioned, we are installing industry-leading technologies for collision awareness on over 1,000 pieces of mobile mine equipment across our operating assets to mitigate a key risk in our mining operations. I'm pleased to say this initiative is progressing well, and 2/3 of Syncrude’s Aurora mine equipment will be outfitted by year-end, and installations on the remaining equipment at Aurora are expected to be completed by January 2023, nearly 2 months ahead of schedule.

其次，如前所述，我們正在運營資產中的 1,000 多台移動礦山設備上安裝行業領先的碰撞感知技術，以降低我們採礦作業中的一個關鍵風險。我很高興地說這項計劃進展順利，Syncrude 的 Aurora 礦山設備的 2/3 將在年底前完成裝備，Aurora 剩餘設備的安裝預計將在 2023 年 1 月完成，提前近 2 個月的時間表。

Deployment schedules for the remaining mines are on plan with Syncrude's Mildred Lake Mine and Fort Hills going live in mid-2023 and Suncor's base line being complete by the end of next year. As well, our fatigue management system installation, as discussed in previous calls, will be completed across all mines by early 2023 and is already fully installed and functioning at Syncrude Mildred Lake and Aurora mines. This technology has so far demonstrated the potential to reduce fatigue-related events by up to 80%. Third, and crucial to our long-term success, we are partnering with industry-leading subject matter experts to better equip our leaders across all our operations with practical skills to lead and sustain safe behaviors on the front line of our organization.

其餘礦山的部署時間表正在計劃中，Syncrude 的 Mildred Lake 礦山和 Fort Hills 礦山將於 2023 年年中投產，Suncor 的基線將於明年年底完成。此外，如之前的電話會議所述，我們的疲勞管理系統安裝將在 2023 年初在所有礦山完成，並且已經在 Syncrude Mildred Lake 和 Aurora 礦山完全安裝並運行。迄今為止，這項技術已證明有可能將與疲勞相關的事件減少多達 80%。第三，對於我們的長期成功至關重要，我們正在與行業領先的主題專家合作，以更好地為我們所有業務的領導者提供實用技能，以在我們組織的前線領導和維持安全行為。

By enhancing our leadership coaching and competency programs to ensure sustainment of visible felt leadership, our approach leverages human organizational performance principles consistent with other industry leaders to strengthen our safety culture while ensuring we have a strong focus on our material risks and assurance of our critical controls. These are a few key examples of how we're driving focus and improving safe, reliable operations going forward.

通過加強我們的領導力培訓和能力計劃以確保維持可見的領導力，我們的方法利用與其他行業領導者一致的人力組織績效原則來加強我們的安全文化，同時確保我們高度關注我們的重大風險和關鍵控制的保證.這些是我們如何推動重點發展並改進安全、可靠運營的幾個關鍵示例。

I would now like to move to our progress on our efforts to optimize our asset portfolio towards our core integrated business. As you know, we've initiated a robust process to divest from non-core assets to increase and focus in our portfolio. Recently, I announced the sale of our wind assets for $730 million. And also, during the quarter, we closed the sale of our Norway E&P assets. Meanwhile, the process to sell our U.K. E&P assets continues and I expect that process to conclude in the coming months.

我現在想談談我們在優化資產組合以實現核心綜合業務方面取得的進展。如您所知，我們已經啟動了一個強有力的流程來剝離非核心資產，以增加和關注我們的投資組合。最近，我宣布以 7.3 億美元的價格出售我們的風能資產。此外，在本季度，我們完成了挪威 E&P 資產的出售。與此同時，出售我們英國 E&P 資產的過程仍在繼續，我預計該過程將在未來幾個月內結束。

A portion of the proceeds of these noncore asset sales is being used to increase our operated ownership interest in the Fort Hills asset by approximately 21%. This additional interest in Fort Hills demonstrates our confidence in the long-term value of the asset which is backed up by a detailed assessment by our new and highly experienced mining leadership. Last week, in our Fort Hills announcement, I discussed our multiyear performance improvement plan for Fort Hills which will have short-term impacts to both production and costs over the next 3 years and set up the asset for long-term success. Although there is no change to our 2022 Fort Hills guidance. As we begin to execute this plan, we do expect volumes to be reduced in the fourth quarter as well as into Q1 2023.

這些非核心資產出售的部分收益用於將我們在 Fort Hills 資產中的經營所有權權益增加約 21%。對 Fort Hills 的額外興趣表明我們對資產的長期價值充滿信心，而我們經驗豐富的新礦業領導層的詳細評估支持了這一點。上週，在我們的 Fort Hills 公告中，我討論了我們針對 Fort Hills 的多年績效改進計劃，該計劃將對未來 3 年的生產和成本產生短期影響，並為長期成功建立資產。儘管我們的 2022 年 Fort Hills 指南沒有變化。當我們開始執行該計劃時，我們確實預計第四季度以及 2023 年第一季度的銷量將會減少。

When combined with other factors such as extended turnarounds in our oil sands business and at non-operated E&P assets, we expect overall company production to come in towards the lower end of our 2022 guidance. We continue to manage through the Fort Hills plan and I look very forward to providing a more fulsome update on our investor presentation on November 29. This targeted portfolio optimization focuses Suncor on our core integrated business and along with our capital allocation framework accelerates the execution of our plans to grow shareholder value.

結合其他因素，例如我們的油砂業務和非運營勘探與生產資產的周轉時間延長，我們預計公司的整體產量將接近我們 2022 年指引的下限。我們繼續通過 Fort Hills 計劃進行管理，我非常期待在 11 月 29 日對我們的投資者介紹提供更全面的更新。這種有針對性的投資組合優化使 Suncor 專注於我們的核心綜合業務，並與我們的資本分配框架一起加速執行我們增加股東價值的計劃。

As well, a core part of our long-term success will also be on continuing to advance our plans to decarbonize our assets, a big piece of which is collaborating with our oil sands industry peers and the Pathways Alliance to reach net zero by 2050. I'm pleased to see the government of Alberta select the Pathways Alliance for pore space in the Cold Lake area and this is an important milestone in Pathways plans to develop a world-scale carbon capture system for the oil sands industry. I am encouraged by this progress and continued industry, government and stakeholder co-investment and collaboration will be key to the success of this world scale endeavor. And with that, I'll now pass it over to Alister for his comments.

同樣，我們長期成功的核心部分也將是繼續推進我們的資產脫碳計劃，其中很大一部分是與我們的油砂行業同行和 Pathways Alliance 合作，到 2050 年實現淨零排放。我很高興看到艾伯塔省政府選擇 Pathways 聯盟來開發冷湖地區的孔隙空間，這是 Pathways 計劃為油砂行業開發世界級碳捕獲系統的一個重要里程碑。我對這一進展感到鼓舞，持續的行業、政府和利益相關者的共同投資與合作將是這一世界規模努力取得成功的關鍵。有了這個，我現在將它傳遞給 Alister，徵求他的意見。

Thanks Kris. I'll briefly focus on a couple of items. First, capital allocation. We continue to buy back shares and reduce our net debt. Year-to-date, Q3, we have returned $6.3 billion in total to shareholders comprising $1.9 billion in dividends plus $4.4 billion in share buybacks and that's roughly 7% of our outstanding shares. We've also reduced net debt by $2.5 billion excluding approximately $1 billion of foreign exchange translation loss due to the significantly stronger U.S. dollar this year. Depending on commodity prices, we expect to increase our allocation to share buybacks to 75% by the end of Q1 2023 and this will complement our 4% dividend yield. Next, during the quarter, we recorded a $2.6 billion after-tax impairment related to Fort Hills. Note that the impairment is guided by the transaction value of the recently purchased additional stake of the project. With that, over to you Trevor.

謝謝克里斯。我將簡要地關注幾個項目。第一，資本配置。我們繼續回購股票並減少我們的淨債務。今年第三季度，我們共向股東返還了 63 億美元，其中包括 19 億美元的股息和 44 億美元的股票回購，大約占我們流通股的 7%。我們還減少了 25 億美元的淨債務，不包括由於今年美元顯著走強而造成的約 10 億美元的外匯換算損失。根據大宗商品價格，我們預計到 2023 年第一季度末將股票回購的配置增加到 75%，這將補充我們 4% 的股息收益率。接下來，在本季度，我們記錄了與 Fort Hills 相關的 26 億美元稅後減值。請注意，減值以最近購買的項目額外股權的交易價值為指導。就這樣，特雷弗交給你了。

Thank you, Kris and Alister. I'll turn the call back to the operator to take some questions.

謝謝你，克里斯和阿利斯特。我會將電話轉回給接線員回答一些問題。

(Operator Instructions) We have our first question from the line of Greg Pardy of RBC Capital Markets.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自 RBC 資本市場的 Greg Pardy。

Definitely like what you and the team are doing in terms of steps taken. I want to ask about Fort Hills, but maybe just before I do that, when I look at your downstream business going into the fourth quarter, 2 big advantages obviously cracks and the other one is just high utilization. Are you continuing to see a high utilization rate in your refineries? And just any other color you can give us on the downstream as we go through Q4?

就所採取的步驟而言，絕對喜歡您和團隊正在做的事情。我想問問 Fort Hills，但也許就在我這樣做之前，當我看到你的下游業務進入第四季度時，有兩個明顯的優勢明顯破裂，另一個就是高利用率。您是否繼續看到煉油廠的高利用率？在我們進行第四季度時，您可以在下游給我們任何其他顏色嗎？

Sure. Greg thanks for the question and yes, to your point, we're certainly seeing a really strong cracking margin environment we're expecting that to continue into the fourth quarter. I do have Arnel here, our Senior Vice President, Refining and why don't I pass to Arnel and just ask him to just talk a little bit about refinery utilization and our expectations in Q4.

當然。格雷格感謝你提出這個問題，是的，就你的觀點而言，我們當然看到了一個非常強勁的利潤率環境，我們預計這種情況將持續到第四季度。我這裡有 Arnel，我們的煉油高級副總裁，為什麼我不轉給 Arnel，請他談談煉油廠的利用率和我們對第四季度的預期。

Thank you, Kris. Let me first start by saying we continuously look at all the profitability drivers for our downstream business, that includes (inaudible), (inaudible), product channels and of course, focus on cost and capital delivery. As I look back in the third quarter when the overall utilization was 100%, we did have to account for the planned outage of the Edmonton sulfur recovery unit and this impacted our ability to fully capture the margins in that period as we reoptimize our (inaudible). For the fourth quarter, I am anticipating similar utilizations was slightly weaker cracks, but we’re still within above historic levels.

謝謝你，克里斯。首先讓我說，我們不斷關注下游業務的所有盈利驅動因素，包括（聽不清）、（聽不清）、產品渠道，當然，還關注成本和資本交付。當我回顧第三季度整體利用率為 100% 時，我們確實不得不考慮埃德蒙頓硫磺回收裝置的計劃停運，這影響了我們在重新優化我們的（聽不清）時充分獲取該期間利潤的能力).對於第四季度，我預計類似的利用率會略有下降，但我們仍處於歷史水平之上。

Thanks, Arnel. And so we've got a strong -- I think we're setting up for a strong end to the year, Greg, is the way I would say on the downstream side. And I'd expect as we go into 2023, the macro environment for refining is going to continue to be quite strong for us. Now, you said you had another question on Fort Hills.

謝謝，阿內爾。因此，我們有一個強大的 - 我認為我們正在為今年的強勁結束做好準備，格雷格，這就是我在下游方面所說的方式。而且我預計，隨著我們進入 2023 年，煉油的宏觀環境將繼續對我們來說非常強勁。現在，你說你有另一個關於 Fort Hills 的問題。

Yes. So, let's come back maybe to Fort Hills exactly so with the remediation plan, the stuff I wanted to dig into and I recognize you're going to talk more about this at the Investor open house but can you talk maybe just a bit about more variability, water and then maybe what some of the differences are between the South Central and North pits. And then, I guess, overall, how you'd sort of characterize that resource distribution. Where is most of the ore? And how does the plan now set you up for long-term success at Fort Hills?

是的。所以，讓我們回到 Fort Hills 的整治計劃，我想深入研究的東西，我知道你會在投資者開放日上更多地談論這個，但你能不能談談更多變異性，水，然後可能是中南礦坑和北礦坑之間的一些差異。然後，我想，總的來說，你會如何描述這種資源分佈。哪裡的礦石最多？該計劃現在如何幫助您在 Fort Hills 取得長期成功？

Thanks Greg and yes, we will definitely talk about this in detail at the Investor Day and as we talk also about our 2023 guidance. As we said, we have this improvement plan related to the asset to deal with a lot of the issues that you're just raising your question. I have Peter here beside me, Peter Zebedee, who's our Executive Vice President of Mining and Upgrading, has been working extremely closely with his team and maybe I'll just pass this on over to Peter to provide a color to your question.

謝謝格雷格，是的，我們一定會在投資者日詳細討論這個問題，同時我們也會討論我們的 2023 年指導方針。正如我們所說，我們有這個與資產相關的改進計劃來處理您剛剛提出的許多問題。 Peter Zebedee 在我身邊，他是我們的採礦和升級執行副總裁，一直與他的團隊密切合作，也許我會把這個轉交給 Peter 來為你的問題提供顏色。

Thanks very much Kris. Let me first start off by saying that we -- myself along with the team have done a really in-depth review over the last few months on the Fort Hills asset. And firstly, I think it's important to note that our fixed plant facility really is world class and our focus around -- and the challenges that we've seen have really been around the ore body and the mine as you stated. Some of the issues that we're seeing are related to 2021 events and really around physical constraints in the pits, and this will require changes on how we mine and sequence the ore in the years to come. You're correct, Fort Hills asset has 3 mine pits, the South Pit, which we're currently completing mining in transitioning to the Central Pit in the early part of 2022 and then ultimately, the North Pit and it is indeed the North Pit that has the largest amount of reserves in this largest in surface area.

非常感謝克里斯。首先讓我說，在過去的幾個月裡，我們自己和團隊對 Fort Hills 資產進行了非常深入的審查。首先，我認為重要的是要注意我們的固定工廠設施確實是世界一流的，我們關注的重點是——正如您所說，我們所看到的挑戰確實圍繞著礦體和礦山。我們看到的一些問題與 2021 年的事件有關，實際上與礦坑中的物理限制有關，這將需要在未來幾年改變我們開采和排序礦石的方式。你是對的，Fort Hills 資產有 3 個礦坑，南坑，我們目前正在完成開採，在 2022 年初過渡到中央坑，然後最終是北坑，它確實是北坑在這個面積最大的地方擁有最多的儲量。

The new plan really accelerates the transition that we have to both the Center and the North Pit. This will ultimately give us more operational flexibility and it gives us more ability to increase our operating efficiency in the year to come. We are actively monitoring the risks around Devonian water pit fall stability. We have controls in place and while the new plan is not without risks, we believe we have a good handle on what's to come that we've got appropriate mitigations in place.

新計劃確實加快了我們向中心和北坑的過渡。這最終將為我們提供更大的運營靈活性，並使我們更有能力在來年提高運營效率。我們正在積極監測泥盆紀水坑墜落穩定性的風險。我們有適當的控制措施，雖然新計劃並非沒有風險，但我們相信我們可以很好地處理即將發生的事情，因為我們已經採取了適當的緩解措施。

And in our next question comes from the line of Doug Leggate from Bank of America.

在我們的下一個問題中，美國銀行的 Doug Leggate 提出了問題。

The first one is just on the reliability. It seems like you guys are making some improvements there. We can see it in the numbers. Can you just talk about what's changing in your operations to drive that better performance?

第一個只是關於可靠性。看來你們在那裡做了一些改進。我們可以從數字中看出。您能否談談您的運營中發生了什麼變化以推動更好的績效？

Thanks very much for the question. That's exactly one of our key focus areas in all aspects of the business upstream through downstream and the teams have been working on that specifically and with a lot of focus. It isn't one thing. It's really the combination of driving the focus across the organization on the performance of the assets and reliability and just the work that all the teams are doing across all the access plan as well as our mining assets. As you heard a bit in Peter's comments, so I'm really pleased to see the progress we're making on it, and we're going to continue to move quickly in that direction to continue to improve on reliability.

非常感謝你的提問。這正是我們從上游到下游業務各個方面的重點關注領域之一，團隊一直在專門致力於此，並且非常關注。這不是一回事。這實際上是推動整個組織對資產性能和可靠性的關注以及所有團隊在所有訪問計劃以及我們的採礦資產中所做的工作的結合。正如您在 Peter 的評論中聽到的，所以我很高興看到我們在這方面取得的進展，我們將繼續朝著這個方向快速前進，以繼續提高可靠性。

Okay. I appreciate that. Second question is just a follow-up on Fort Hills. After this acquisition where you acquired your non-op partners stake, can you talk about any other incremental M&A opportunities that might be in your radar maybe other assets that you own a piece of that you would like to own more of?

好的。我很感激。第二個問題只是 Fort Hills 的後續問題。在您收購非運營合作夥伴股權的此次收購之後，您能否談談您可能會想到的任何其他增量併購機會，或者您擁有的其他資產，您希望擁有更多？

Thanks for the question. First of all, just to be clear, we're not looking to do M&A. What we do is if there's an opportunity that's going to provide compelling value to our shareholders that's on strategy then we'll take a look at it and the example of the transaction we just did at tech is a clear example of that where we had an opportunity to do -- to take a partner interest in an asset that we operate. We know well. It's a long-life asset, has low-intensity GHG barrels, and we were able to transact at a very compelling value for our shareholders and so when we can do that sort of thing, we'll be very disciplined and we'll be very opportunistic.

謝謝你的問題。首先，要明確一點，我們不打算進行併購。我們所做的是，如果有機會為我們的戰略股東提供令人信服的價值，那麼我們將對其進行研究，我們剛剛在科技領域進行的交易就是一個明顯的例子，我們有一個做的機會——讓合作夥伴對我們經營的資產感興趣。我們很清楚。這是一種長期資產，具有低強度的溫室氣體排放桶，我們能夠以對股東來說非常有吸引力的價值進行交易，所以當我們可以做那種事情時，我們會非常自律，我們會非常投機取巧。

Your next question comes from the line of Neil Mehta of Goldman Sachs.

你的下一個問題來自高盛的尼爾梅塔。

On the recently announced acquired interest, is that sort of a natural stopping point at that particular asset? Or are there any kind of longer-term plans to increase ownership, obviously, acknowledging the recent announcement had a strong element of price associated with it.

關於最近宣布的收購權益，這是該特定資產的自然停止點嗎？或者是否有任何增加所有權的長期計劃，顯然，承認最近的公告具有與之相關的強烈價格因素。

All right. Thanks for that. I think the question, I give you the answer I just gave to the last question because it's the exact same. We did this transaction based on all the dimensions I just said, extreme compelling value for shareholders, strategic fit, and it was an opportunity that presented ourselves to do that and add significant value for our shareholders. We're not in the mode of looking to do M&A, and we really just -- those types of opportunities present themselves, then we'll obviously take a close look at it. It's going to create compelling value for our shareholders.

好的。感謝那。我想這個問題，我給你我剛剛給最後一個問題的答案，因為它完全一樣。我們根據我剛才所說的所有方面進行了這項交易，對股東極具吸引力的價值，戰略契合，這是一個機會，我們可以這樣做並為我們的股東增加重要價值。我們不打算進行併購，我們真的只是 - 那些類型的機會出現了，然後我們顯然會仔細研究它。它將為我們的股東創造令人信服的價值。

Okay. Thanks. And then just as a follow-up on CapEx so and acknowledging you will be talking about this a little bit more later this month. But, how are you thinking about next year spend with West White Rose and the elevated cost environment as well as continuing to monitor Fort Hills?

好的。謝謝。然後就像資本支出的後續行動一樣，並承認你將在本月晚些時候更多地討論這個問題。但是，你如何看待明年與 West White Rose 和高成本環境以及繼續監控 Fort Hills 的支出？

Yes. Thanks for the question. And we're going to be talking about that in detail at our upcoming Investor Day on 2023. We're going through the portfolio very carefully on our capital plan, and we'll be in a position to share that with you then.

是的。謝謝你的問題。我們將在即將到來的 2023 年投資者日上詳細討論這一點。我們正在根據我們的資本計劃非常仔細地審查投資組合，屆時我們將能夠與您分享。

Your next question will come from the line of Menno Hulshof of TD Securities.

您的下一個問題將來自道明證券的 Menno Hulshof。

Now, I'll start with your incremental free funds flow targets. I believe the plan is still to get to tune $2.15 billion by 2025 and it looks like you're targeting $875 million for this year and $1.3 billion for next year. C you just give us a sense of how much of your tune $875 million target for 2022 has already been achieved and how you're tracking on your $1.3 billion target for next year?

現在，我將從您的增量自由資金流量目標開始。我相信該計劃仍然是到 2025 年調整 21.5 億美元，看起來你今年的目標是 8.75 億美元，明年是 13 億美元。 C 你只是讓我們了解你的 2022 年 8.75 億美元目標已經實現了多少，以及你如何跟踪明年的 13 億美元目標？

Thanks very much, and yes, we continue to push forward on that program and just a reminder, that program is made up of initiatives and investments that drive increased revenue and margin enhancement as well as cost reduction. We're on track relative to those plans and we're seeing those come through. And examples we've talked about them in the past, examples is the interconnected pipeline that we invested in and that we really started in 2022 really leveraging that asset and we're seeing the benefit of that asset through the performance of the business. We're also driving cost reduction.

非常感謝，是的，我們繼續推進該計劃，只是提醒一下，該計劃由推動增加收入和利潤率以及降低成本的舉措和投資組成。相對於這些計劃，我們正在走上正軌，我們正在看到這些計劃得以實現。我們過去談到過它們的例子，例子是我們投資的互連管道，我們真正在 2022 年開始真正利用該資產，我們通過業務績效看到了該資產的好處。我們也在推動成本降低。

Now cost reduction, we're expecting more of that program to be playing out in 2023-2024. Obviously, we have inflation headwinds that we're going to need to work through and we're actually working and pushing the team to find other cost reduction offset knowing that we've got these inflation headwinds in front of us. Feel we're on track relative to the program, still much to do in the back half of it and a lot of focus by the teams deliver.

現在降低成本，我們預計該計劃的更多內容將在 2023-2024 年實施。顯然，我們需要克服通貨膨脹的不利因素，我們實際上正在努力並推動團隊尋找其他降低成本的抵消方法，因為我們知道我們面前有這些通貨膨脹的不利因素。感覺我們相對於該計劃走上了正軌，在它的後半部分還有很多工作要做，並且團隊交付了很多關注點。

Thanks, Kris. And then my second question relates to turnarounds and utilization for 2023 and maybe this also falls into the wait till the end of the month bucket, but I'll throw it out there. Can you just remind us or maybe just walk us through where we should expect to see the largest turnarounds and impact to utilization across upstream and downstream in 2023?

謝謝，克里斯。然後我的第二個問題與 2023 年的周轉和利用率有關，也許這也屬於等到月底的時候，但我會把它扔在那裡。您能否提醒我們，或者只是引導我們了解 2023 年我們應該在哪些方面看到最大的轉變以及對上下游利用率的影響？

Sure. Thanks Menno. On downstream, it's going to be a, what I'll call a regular turnaround kind of program through 2023. Probably the largest event is going to be at the Commerce City refinery with the turnaround for Plant 2. Why don’t I ask Peter actually, we do have U2 as planned maintenance next year, and so why don't I just ask Peter to provide a bit more color to your question?

當然。謝謝門諾。在下游，這將是一個，我稱之為到 2023 年的常規周轉計劃。可能最大的事件將在 Commerce City 煉油廠進行，2 號工廠的周轉。我為什麼不問彼得實際上，明年我們確實有 U2 計劃維護，所以我為什麼不讓 Peter 為你的問題提供更多顏色呢？

Yes. I would say for 2023, the biggest events are indeed U2, as you mentioned, Kris, and then a Syncrude turnaround also next year. I do want to highlight, though, maybe just building on what you said, Kris, what is different for us compared to historical performance really is this interconnect pipeline between Syncrude and the base plant. It really helps us to give much more operational flexibility. In the past, when we needed bitumen production, the coke and hydrogen treating units, we really needed those to start up together in sequence. With the use of the interconnect pipeline, we've decoupled that and we can really prioritize bitumen-producing assets to start exporting bitumen as the cokers aren’t ready or on the other side, export our crude as the cokers are online and the hydrogen is still down. It just gives us a bunch more operating flexibility, and that's really changed the game for us.

是的。我想說，對於 2023 年，最大的事件確實是 U2，正如你提到的，Kris，然後是明年 Syncrude 的轉變。不過，我確實想強調，也許只是基於你所說的，Kris，與歷史表現相比，我們的真正不同之處在於 Syncrude 和基地工廠之間的互連管道。它確實幫助我們提供了更多的操作靈活性。過去我們需要瀝青生產、焦炭和氫氣處理裝置時，我們確實需要它們依次啟動。通過使用互連管道，我們已經將其分離，我們可以真正優先考慮生產瀝青的資產，以便在焦化器尚未準備就緒時開始出口瀝青，或者在另一端，在焦化器上線時出口我們的原油，而氫氣還在下降。它只是給了我們更多的操作靈活性，這真的改變了我們的遊戲規則。

We have your next question from the line of John Royall of JPMorgan.

摩根大通的約翰·羅亞爾 (John Royall) 提出了您的下一個問題。

Just one on capital allocation. A couple of your peers have been using buybacks and in addition, going to special or variable dividends more recently. I think your framework really just allows for the buyback. Maybe you can just talk about how you think about a variable dividend as a tool relative to the buyback and the preference there to buybacks?

只有一個關於資本配置。你的幾個同行一直在使用回購，此外，最近還使用了特殊或可變股息。我認為你的框架真的只允許回購。也許你可以談談你如何看待可變股息作為相對於回購的工具以及那裡對回購的偏好？

Thanks for the question John and we're very focused on being disciplined against our capital allocation framework and actually, I'm going to ask Alister to take that question.

感謝約翰提出的問題，我們非常專注於對我們的資本配置框架進行紀律處分，實際上，我要請阿利斯特回答這個問題。

Thanks Kris, John, I mean, essentially, we set out a capital allocation we're 50-50 between buybacks and the debt reduction, we expect to move to 75-25 pretty quickly in the next few months as I laid out.

謝謝克里斯，約翰，我的意思是，從本質上講，我們在回購和債務削減之間設定了 50-50 的資本分配，我們預計在接下來的幾個月裡會很快達到 75-25。

Variable dividends at this point given the enhanced value in our stock are not part equation, but I've never ruled them out longer term as being part of the capital allocation as we go forward. So, when I look at the value of our stock, it's significantly undervalued and our focus is definitely on buying stock back.

考慮到我們股票的增值，此時的可變股息不是部分方程式，但我從不排除它們在我們前進的過程中長期作為資本配置的一部分。因此，當我查看我們股票的價值時，它被嚴重低估了，我們的重點肯定是回購股票。

Okay. Thank you, Alister. And then if I could just follow-up on the 75% level and certainly not looking to split hairs here about a month or 2 here or there but just if you can clarify what you mean by a dependency on the commodity environment? Is that -- if price declines precipitously, you might not move to the 75%? Just trying to understand exactly what that comment means.

好的。謝謝你，阿利斯特。然後，如果我可以在 75% 的水平上進行跟進，當然不希望在這里或那里分裂大約一個月或 2 個月，但只要你能澄清你所說的對商品環境的依賴是什麼意思？那是——如果價格急劇下跌，你可能不會移動到 75%？只是想準確理解該評論的含義。

Yes. I think if you -- we have commodity price is in line with where we're at today, I think no problem in meeting the end of Q1 next year. If you saw a very significant reduction in commodity prices and cracks, obviously, that we get extended out.

是的。我想如果你 - 我們的商品價格與我們今天的水平一致，我認為明年第一季度末沒問題。如果你看到大宗商品價格和裂縫非常顯著的下降，顯然，我們就會延長。

And your last question comes from the line of Doug Leggate of Bank of America.

你的最後一個問題來自美國銀行的 Doug Leggate。

Doubling up here, and I was on another call earlier, but I did want to -- Kris, first of all, I did want to say -- I don't know if it's been called out yet, but the strong operating performance again this quarter ahead of the Analyst Day, I'm sure everybody is happy to see that but my question is on the slide deck. I might be getting ahead of the Analyst Day here, but the $2.15 billion target is now, I think been characterized as offsetting headwinds, obviously, inflation amongst other things. Should we think of that as signaling that the $2.15 billion is no longer an absolute, but -- or sorry, no longer a net and maybe an absolutely some offsets any early look to how you're thinking about that ahead of the end of the month would be helpful. Thanks.

在這裡加倍，我早些時候接到了另一個電話，但我確實想 - Kris，首先，我確實想說 - 我不知道它是否已經被調用，但再次表現強勁在分析師日之前的這個季度，我相信每個人都很高興看到這一點，但我的問題是在幻燈片上。我可能會提前到分析師日，但現在 21.5 億美元的目標是，我認為其特徵是抵消逆風，顯然，通貨膨脹等。我們是否應該認為這表明 21.5 億美元不再是絕對的，而是——或者抱歉，不再是淨額，也許絕對是一些抵消了任何早期你在個月會有幫助。謝謝。

Yes, I'll take that one, Doug, thanks for that. I mean, obviously, we still and as Kris mentioned earlier moving through and achieving the specific items we had in that $2.15 billion revenue margin and some cost reductions with a big focus on cost reductions coming in 2023 and then obviously in 2024, 2025, we have the addition of the margin and revenue from [cogen]. If I look at what was here in that assumption was that we would look to our sort of regular inflation rate 2% to 3%, we're obviously now in that environment. While we are targeting and asking our operations to find additional offsets, it's certainly going to be difficult to offset inflation across our business to the extent that we're seeing it today. Some of it will be used to offset inflation and some would elevate that.

是的，我要那個，道格，謝謝你。我的意思是，很明顯，正如 Kris 之前提到的那樣，我們仍然在推進並實現我們在 21.5 億美元的收入利潤率和一些成本削減方面的具體項目，重點是 2023 年的成本削減，然後顯然是在 2024 年、2025 年，我們增加來自 [cogen] 的利潤和收入。如果我看一下這裡的假設是我們會考慮我們的正常通貨膨脹率 2% 到 3%，我們現在顯然處於那種環境中。雖然我們的目標是並要求我們的業務找到額外的抵消措施，但要抵消我們今天所看到的整個業務的通貨膨脹肯定會很困難。其中一些將用於抵消通貨膨脹，而另一些則會提高通貨膨脹率。

And we don't have any questions on queue. I would now like to turn the conference back to Kris Smith for closing remarks.

我們沒有關於隊列的任何問題。我現在想把會議轉回 Kris Smith 的閉幕詞。

Great. Thanks, everyone for joining us and for the questions. I hope everyone can join us for our upcoming investor presentation on November 29. In preparation for that, the leadership team and I are completing a deep review of the portfolio towards providing a robust company guidance for 2023 and I'm looking forward to the conversation with everyone on that day and in closing, I just want to emphasize that I am taking action to drive shareholder value and achieve operational excellence and make no mistake, this is the focus of our leadership team every day and it's my top priority and thanks, everyone, and we'll end the call there. Thank you, operator.

偉大的。謝謝大家加入我們並提出問題。我希望每個人都能參加我們即將於 11 月 29 日舉行的投資者介紹會。為此，領導團隊和我正在完成對投資組合的深入審查，以期為 2023 年提供強有力的公司指導，我期待著這次對話在那天和閉幕式上與大家一起，我只想強調，我正在採取行動推動股東價值並實現卓越運營，毫無疑問，這是我們領導團隊每天關注的焦點，也是我的首要任務，謝謝，大家，我們將在那裡結束通話。謝謝你，運營商。

Thanks Kris. Thanks to all our participants for joining us today and this concludes today's content. You may now disconnect.

謝謝克里斯。感謝所有參與者今天加入我們，今天的內容到此結束。您現在可以斷開連接。