Both
However, while Cenovus brought back 60,000 barrels a day in June to take advantage of higher bitumen prices, Suncor signalled Thursday the shutdown of one of the two production trains at its 194,000-bpd
"In response to the sharp decline in oil prices in April, we quickly reduced production volumes at our oilsands operations while continuing to steam and store the mobilized oil in the reservoir," said Cenovus CEO
"When the market price for Western Canadian Select (bitumen-blend oil) increased almost 10-fold in June compared with April, we acted fast to ramp our oilsands production back up to take advantage of the improved pricing."
The increase in WCS to an average of
Pourbaix said Cenovus is currently producing more oil than allowed under
Although some of the industry's nearly one million bpd of production taken offline in
On a separate conference call Thursday, Suncor CEO
"The pace of demand recovery will be influenced by a number of factors," he said, listing risks including a possible second wave of virus outbreaks, offset by government stimulus spending.
"We won't bet the financial health of our company on the pace of recovery, which is outside of our control."
Suncor's production was 655,500 boe/d during the second quarter ended
Little said bringing back production from the second train at
"Given the high level of global crude inventories and the return of production which was shut in during the second quarter, we expect (oil) pricing and crude spread volatility to remain through 2020, although obviously not as extreme as we saw in the second quarter," he said.
Cenovus production in the second quarter was 465,415 barrels of oil equivalent per day, down from 482,600 boe/d in the first quarter when it took advantage of an
Since then, Cenovus has halted its rail shipping, which moved as much as 100,000 barrels per day, because it has been able to find sufficient pipeline capacity. McKenzie estimated not using its rail terminal is saving Cenovus about
Neither Cenovus nor Suncor said they plan immediate changes to their 2020 capital budgets which were reduced in March and April.
Suncor reported late Wednesday a second-quarter net loss of
On Thursday morning, Cenovus reported a net loss of
This report by
Companies in this story: (TSX:CVE, TSX:SU)
Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version contained incorrect Cenovus production numbers.
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