While the Edmonton refinery is in the spotlight, the whole orchestra deserves applause. Our Upstream business; three Canadian refineries; supply, trading and optimization teams; and operations and logistics teams, worked in concert to achieve this success.
“Our throughput record and increased utilization is the culmination of several years of work and an alignment of favourable economic conditions. We have carefully optimized our operations by improving reliability and efficiency. However, it’s a testament to the collaboration of the Upstream and Downstream teams that we were able to truly benefit from this work,” says Mike Teshima, acting VP, Edmonton refinery.
The feedstock used to make fuels like gasoline, diesel and jet fuel at our Edmonton refinery is primarily from our own oil sands operations. The Crude Supply team optimized oil sands crude blends for the refinery while the Crude Scheduling team and Production Planning and Logistics team, who are responsible for managing the logistics and coordination of crude oil supply, ensured that the blends were available when needed. With the support from these three teams, the refinery delivered 105 per cent refinery utilization and broke their all-time throughput record, twice over.
When the refinery runs at record utilization, it means that we have a record amount of gasoline and diesel to sell in the marketplace. “A cross-functional team involving supply, trading, and operations and logistics, worked together to establish new ways to move excess diesel from Edmonton. Additionally, we sold product to new customers in the United States,” says Paula O'Shaughnessy, VP, Supply. “This is a true example of a passionate team collaborating to challenge the status quo and maximize value for Suncor. Working together, we were able to profitably place every drop produced at Edmonton.”
Not only did the Edmonton refinery achieve a record-breaking performance, because of our ‘one Suncor’ approach and operational excellence, we achieved 98 per cent utilization across all our refineries. This was our highest-ever first quarter refining utilization result and helped us to achieve record refined product sales of 581,000 barrels per day.
