Suncor CEO cites drop in safety incidents and readies new long-term plan

Rich Kruger said Wednesday the company plans to unveil a new three-year improvement plan, alongside a longer-term 15-year strategy focused on "bitumen supply and development options." Photo by Azin Ghaffari/Postmedia files

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“2025 was the safest year in company history,” Kruger said Wednesday during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call. “Across the board: fewer incidents, lower severity, both personnel and process safety. Relative to 2022, injuries and incidents are down 70 per cent in three years. This is a credit to our people, our priorities and our processes.”

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Safety has moved more sharply into focus for oilsands producers this earnings season, after a worker was killed and another seriously injured last week while unloading pipe from a truck at Cenovus Energy Inc.’s Christina lake North project in northeastern Alberta.

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Provincial occupational health and safety investigators are also continuing to investigate an incident last month at Suncor’s Fort Hills mine north of Fort McMurray, Alta., where a worker died after the equipment they were operating sank into muskeg. The company told The Canadian Press last month that early indications were that the incident may have been the result of a medical event.

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The January death is the first under Kruger’s tenure, which has so far seen a significant and sustained improvement in the oilsands major’s safety record and operational performance. Prior to Kruger taking over in April 2023, Suncor had come under fire for having the worst safety record among its peers, in part due to the deaths of a dozen employees and contractors between 2014 and 2022.

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The fatalities, along with years of operational underperformance, led to the resignation of former chief executive Mark Little. Suncor’s board subsequently appointed Kruger, the former head of Imperial Oil Ltd., who rolled out a three-year improvement plan in 2024 that the company says it has now completed ahead of schedule.

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Kruger said Wednesday the company plans to unveil a new three-year improvement plan, alongside a longer-term 15-year strategy focused on “bitumen supply and development options,” at its investor day conference on March 31.

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“We know it needs to be bold and ambitious, clear and compelling to keep your interest and support,” Kruger said.

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In its fourth-quarter earnings released Tuesday, Suncor said it had achieved record quarterly upstream production of 909,000 barrels per day, and record quarterly refinery utilization of 108 per cent.

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However, the company still reported lower adjusted operating earnings of $1.33 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025, down about 15 per cent from a year earlier, with the decline reflecting weaker refining margins, as well as higher royalties and depreciation.

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The company beat analyst expectations with its adjusted funds from operations — Suncor’s preferred cash-flow metric and a measure of cash available to pay dividends — which were $3.2 billion in the quarter. 

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Suncor said it returned $1.5 billion to shareholders during the three-month stretch, with $775 million in share buybacks and $719 million in dividends.

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