Imperial today provided an update on its operations and corporate guidance in response to the market conditions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and decreases in commodity prices.
'The current COVID-19 pandemic, as well as business and commodity price environment, poses many challenges for our industry,' said
The company's priority remains the health and safety of its employees, contract partners, customers and the communities where we operate. In response to the risks posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Imperial has activated existing pandemic monitoring and response plans. The company has emergency and safety protocols for mitigating risk in a variety of scenarios, including the challenges of COVID-19.
'As we continue to face these challenging conditions, I am extremely proud of the dedication and hard work by Imperial's workforce across the country to maintain safe and reliable operations as they also look after the well-being of themselves and their coworkers, their families, communities and our customers,' said Corson.
Although Imperial is in a lower capital spending period in the cycle, the company has carefully assessed its 2020 plans and has identified opportunities to reduce spending in the near-term while maintaining focus on the lowest capital intensity, highest value-creating opportunities. Spending will focus on ensuring ongoing safe and reliable operation of Imperial's assets, and paced investments to continue work on key growth-related projects at a level reflective of the current challenges presented by COVID-19 and the business environment. These deferrals have resulted in an updated capital outlook of
In addition to this reduction in capital spending, Imperial has identified opportunities to reduce operating expenses by
As Imperial continues to assess the impact of COVID-19, scope reductions have been identified for the planned second-quarter turnaround at our Sarnia facility, and a planned coker turnaround at Syncrude has been deferred until the third quarter. The company continues to assess other turnaround activity across the business. More broadly, the impact of COVID-19 and the current business environment on demand is expected to result in negative impacts on Imperial's Upstream production, and
Imperial has demonstrated a long-standing commitment to shareholder returns, underscored by over a century of consecutive dividend payments and 25 consecutive years of dividend growth. The measures Imperial is taking are designed to preserve the strength of the company's strong balance sheet, while enabling the company to maintain its dividend to shareholders and deliver long-term value from its operations. Imperial currently has a normal course issuer bid in place with the
Imperial continues to be well-positioned for the challenges presented in the current business environment, with a Canadian industry-leading debt-to-capital ratio and credit rating, over
'While the current combination of falling oil demand and increasing supply may be uniquely challenging, Imperial has a long history of weathering market volatility,' said Corson. 'We have flexibility in our plans to respond to market conditions as they unfold and remain focused on maximizing long-term shareholder value in whatever business environment we operate.'
Cautionary statement: Statements of future events or conditions in this release, including projections, targets, expectations, estimates, and business plans are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as believe, anticipate, intend, propose, plan, goal, seek, project, evaluate, expect, future, continue, remain, likely, may, should, will and similar references to future periods. Forward-looking statements in this report include, but are not limited to, references to the benefit of stability from an integrated and balanced business model, and steps being taken to exercise flexibility to respond to market conditions; Imperial's focus on health and safety of its workforce and ability to maintain safe and reliable operations, including with respect to COVID-19; the updated 2020 capital outlook of
Forward-looking statements are based on the company's current expectations, estimates, projections and assumptions at the time the statements are made. Actual future financial and operating results, including expectations and assumptions concerning demand growth and energy source, supply and mix; general market conditions; commodity prices and foreign exchange rates; production rates, growth and mix; project plans, timing, costs, technical evaluations and capacities, and the company's ability to effectively execute on these plans and operate its assets; progression of COVID-19 and its impacts on Imperial's ability to operate its assets, including the possible shutdown of facilities due to COVID-19 outbreaks; the company's ability to effectively execute on its business continuity plans; applicable laws and government policies and actions, including production curtailment and restrictions in response to COVID-19; the ability of the company to achieve cost savings and defer maintenance work; refinery utilization and product sales; production life, resource recoveries and reservoir performance; the adoption and impact of new facilities or technologies such as
Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve a number of risks and uncertainties, some that are similar to other oil and gas companies and some that are unique to
Reference to debt-to-capital ratio is the company's debt, defined as the sum of Notes and loans payable and Long-term debt from the company's Consolidated balance sheet, divided by capital, defined as the sum of debt and Total shareholders' equity from the company's Consolidated balance sheet.
After more than a century, Imperial continues to be an industry leader in applying technology and innovation to responsibly develop
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