Cenovus Energy (NYSE:CVE) released first-quarter financial results and hosted an earnings call on Wednesday. Read the complete transcript below.
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Summary
Cenovus Energy Incorporation reported strong financial performance with an operating margin of approximately $4.4 billion and adjusted funds flow of $3.4 billion for the first quarter.
The company achieved record upstream production, notably in oil sands, with production exceeding 972,000 boe per day, supported by the MEG acquisition.
Operational highlights include significant achievements at the Toledo refinery and successful integration at Christina Lake North, with production ramp-up expected to continue.
Cenovus completed agreements to sell its Canadian commercial fuels business for $275 million, with the transaction expected to close in the latter half of 2026.
The company maintained its capital guidance for 2026 at $5 to $5.3 billion, emphasizing growth and optimization projects across various assets.
Cenovus increased its annual base dividend by 10% to $0.88 per share, reflecting growth and operational strength.
Management emphasized the need for competitive national policies to support further oil sands development and expressed optimism about future production and operational efficiencies.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Good morning everyone. Thank you for standing by and welcome to Cenovus Energy Incorporation's first quarter 2026 results conference call. At this time all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 1 on your touchtone telephone. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Patrick Reed, Vice President Investor Relations and Internal Audit. Please go ahead, Mr. Reed.
Patrick Reed (Vice President Investor Relations and Internal Audit)
Thank you, operator. Good morning everyone and welcome to Cenovus 2026 First Quarter Results Conference call. On the call this morning, our CEO John McKenzie and CFO Cam Sandar will take you through our results. Then we'll open the line for John Cam and other members of the Cenovus management team to take your questions. Before getting started, I'll refer you to our advisories located at the end of today's news release. These describe the forward looking information, non GAAP measures and oil and gas terms referred to today. They also outline the risk factors and assumptions relevant to this discussion. Additional information is available in Cenovus annual MD&A and our most recent AIF and Form 40F. And as a reminder, all figures we reference on the call today will be in Canadian dollars unless otherwise indicated. For the question and answer portion of the call, please keep to one question with a maximum of one follow up. You're welcome to rejoin the queue for any other follow up questions you may have. We also ask that you hold off on any detailed modeling questions. You can follow up on those directly with our investor relations team after the call. I will now turn the call over to John. John, please go ahead.
John McKenzie (Chief Executive Officer)
Great. Thank you Patrick and good morning everyone. As always, I'm going to start with our top priority which is safety. At our Toledo refinery, we recently celebrated 12 consecutive months and over 3.3 million man hours without a recordable injury. This milestone was delivered during a period which included a major turnaround on the east side of the plant. Work that carries additional risk given the elevated activity and non routine work. And the business delivered consistent execution bringing that asset back online safely and 11 days ahead of schedule. The performance reflects the commitment and dedication of the Toledo team supported by the strength of our safety systems which focus on leadership, engagement, a stop work culture and recognizing strong safety behaviors. So congratulations to the Toledo refineries. They continue to reinforce a belief core to Cenovus. Strong operational performance starts with doing the work safely every day. So now turning to our results, our priorities this quarter remain unchanged. We've stayed focused on executing our business plan, delivering exceptional operating performance and advancing our growth projects. The focus on execution Translated into strong first quarter results, with upstream production exceeding 972,000 boe per day, supported by record oil sands volumes in our first full quarter following the MEG acquisition. While geopolitical events late in the quarter resulted in increased price volatility and heightened uncertainty, our approach to operating our business remains the same. Our results reflect the strength of our business model. We are a reliable supplier of crude oil, natural gas and refined products to both North American and global markets. Starting with oil sands at Christina lake, production averaged 359,000 barrels per day in the first quarter, supported by strong well performance at Narrows Lake. Narrows Lake is Now producing over 65,000 barrels a day from the first four well pads and with a steam well ratio below 2, individual well performance has been exceptionally strong and exceeds our internal expectations. Our best wells at Narrows Lake are now producing over 5,000 barrels per day. Bringing on a project of this complexity and scale to 65,000 barrels a day in just over nine months is a testament to the quality of the asset and the capability of our technical project and operating people. Production from Narrows Lake will continue to ramp up as we bring on additional well pads and we expect to reach 80,000 barrels a day later this summer. Now, integration work at Christina Lake north is also progressing well. We've completed a delineation and seismic program in the quarter and initiated the redevelopment program ahead of schedule. The first of the 42 redevelopment wells was spud in March and began producing in April. Initial production results are exceeding our internal forecasts and as we execute our redevelopment program, we will see increased production from Christina Lake north throughout the remainder of 2026. At the same time, installation of the first new steam generators progressing ahead of schedule. With startup expected before the end of the year and with the acceleration of the redevelopment well program, we will exceed the $150 million synergy target we set for ourselves in 2026. Not to be outdone, at Foster Creek, we set another quarterly production record of 223,000 barrels per day, with peak rates exceeding 230,000 barrels a day in March. These production rates were driven by the optimization project, which was delivered ahead of schedule, and strong operating performance from our new well pads. We plan to start up an additional four well pads in 2026. The turnaround to Foster Creek Phase G began in April and has progressed well to date with limited production impact. We continue to optimize our turnaround activity across our oil Sands portfolio which will result in more efficient and lower impact turnarounds at Sunrise. Production in the first quarter was just over 59,000 barrels per day. During the quarter we successfully started up the first of the four new well pads on the east side development area of Sunrise. These pads are some of the largest synovuses ever drilled, targeting high quality rich pay of up to 50 meters thick. Now early indications from the first pad have met and exceeded expectations with we've seen recent daily rates reach as high as 68,000 barrels per day and with another three pads to come on in this area, we expect to continue to grow production from Sunrise all the way through to 2028. The Lloydminster thermals delivered another strong quarter averaging 102,000 barrels per day, supported by the continued outperformance of the redevelopment well program. Recent redevelopment wells have surpassed our expectations and and some of our longer laterals nearly doubling our initial forecast. Of note. Now this performance excludes any contribution from Vaughan which we sold in December and with limited initial volumes coming from Marush Lake which continues to ramp up following the 2025 outage. At our Asia Pacific assets, production was over 57,000 boe per day in the quarter and production from the region continues to impress, delivering consistent and robust free cash flow to Cenovus in the Atlantic. Production was over 18,000 barrels a day in the quarter with strong performance from Terra Nova and the base Whiterose field. Of note, we continue to benefit from the high netbacks and Brent plus pricing in that region. At West Whiterose we have now completed all the elements of construction and commissioning and have commenced drilling from the offshore platform, marking another important milestone for the project. I just couldn't be more proud of what this team has been able to deliver through an extremely challenging winter and challenging weather conditions which really extended into the early spring. With drilling operations underway, we now expect first oil from the project later in Q3 in the downstream first quarter results are once again very strong. The Canadian refining business delivered throughput of 115,000 barrels a day in the quarter or a utilization rate of about 107%. During the quarter we entered into agreements to sell our Canadian commercial fuels business, which includes card lock and travel center locations for expected cash proceeds of 275 million. Now this transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2026 pending approval from the Competition Bureau and other customary closing conditions. In U.S. refining business, crude throughput averaged 343,000 barrels a day or approximately 94% utilization. Our PADD 2 refineries continue to deliver strong operational availability, allowing us to optimize margins as the opportunities arise. Adjusted market capture was 114% in the quarter, reflecting a market environment that continued to favor our configuration, including our ability to process heavy crude and our low gasoline to distillate yield ratio. So now I'll turn it over to CAM to walk through some of our financial results.
Cam Sandar (Chief Financial Officer)
Thanks John and good morning everyone. In the first quarter we generated approximately 4.4 billion of operating margin and 3.4 billion of adjusted funds flow. Operating margin in the upstream was over $3.7 billion, exceeding the prior quarter due to the higher production in oil sands, rising benchmark oil prices in late February and March. Our first quarter results included over $1.5 billion of taxes and royalties, which rose alongside commodity prices. Oil sands non fuel operating costs were $8.92 a barrel in the first quarter, about $0.50 per barrel higher than the prior quarter due to planned maintenance workover activities as well as higher GHG compliance costs. Downstream operating margin was 734 million, which included 504 million of inventory holding gains, with results in the quarter benefiting from competitive and reliable operations and improved product pricing in U.S. refining operating costs were $11.74 a barrel or 20 cents per barrel lower than the previous quarter, reflecting lower planned maintenance offset in part by modestly lower throughput and higher energy and electricity costs. Adjusted market capture, as John mentioned, was 114%, with economic conditions continuing to favor the configuration of our refineries. Widening heavy crude differentials, strong diesel and jet fuel margins, and the relative strength of secondary products versus gasoline were all tailwinds in our results. Looking forward, capture rates are expected to normalize through the spring and summer. However, we are seeing significantly higher volatility in product prices in the current environment, and how these prices settle relative to each other over the coming months may impact our capture rates. Capital investment in the first quarter was approximately $1.2 billion, supporting sustaining activity across the business along with investment in growth optimization projects at Christina Lake, North Sunrise, Foster Creek and West Whiterose. Our capital guidance for 2026 remains unchanged at 5 to 5.3 billion. Turning to net debt at the end of the quarter, our balance was approximately 8.1 billion, a modest decrease from the prior quarter with higher adjusted funds flow partially offset by a 1.1 billion increase. Non cash working capital this increase in working capital is typical of periods where commodity prices rise to the extent we saw through the latter part of the quarter as current commodity prices. At current commodity prices, we would expect the pace of deleveraging to accelerate significantly in the coming quarters. Shareholder returns in the first quarter were $1 billion, including 356 million in common share purchases, 379 million through dividends, and $300 million through the redemption of our Series 1 and 2 preferred shares. These were the last outstanding series of preferred shares of the original 900 million, which we have redeemed over the past two years, resulting in a lower cost and a simplified capital structure going forward. Consistent with our commitment to grow shareholder returns, our Board of Directors has approved a 10% increase to the annual base dividend to $0.88 per share. This increase reflects the growth of our business and the strength of our operations, which both fund the dividend and our sustaining capital requirements at a $45 WTI oil price. I'll now turn the call back to John for some closing remarks.
John McKenzie (Chief Executive Officer)
Great. Thanks Cam. Now, as we close the book on the first quarter, it's worth reiterating that volatility and geopolitical uncertainty are not new to our industry. We've seen many cycles over the decades. It's why we constructed our capital structure, financial framework and operating model to perform through a wide range of market conditions. While higher benchmark prices underscore the operating leverage and the cash flow generating capability of our business, they do not change our strategy. Our focus remains on executing the business plan that we laid out in December. Our company responded accordingly this quarter, delivering consistently strong operational performance across both upstream and downstream. We increased our production rates, ran our refineries with high availability and utilization, completed the West White Rose Project and accelerated the integration of Christina Lake north with our unique high quality long reserve life assets coupled with our disciplined capital allocation framework and dedicated and highly competent people, our business performance continues to press our competitive advantages. Now, before we open the line for questions, I want to talk about an opportunity that we as Canadians have if we choose to seize it. The events of the last few weeks have clearly shown the world that energy security is national security and energy security is is economic security. The reality is the world needs affordable, abundant, reliable energy from all sources, regardless of how we label them. The world will require hydrocarbons to form a material component of the energy supply mix for decades to come. And there are no examples of First World nations that don't also have access to affordable, abundant, reliable energy. It is essential and irreplaceable for a high quality standard of living. In Canada, we are blessed with some of the highest quality, longest life resources in the world, including the Canadian oil sands. These resources not only supply Canada with affordable, reliable, abundant energy we use and take for granted every day in our modern lives. But they also fund our social benefit network. Schools, hospitals, roads, pensions through the payment of taxes and royalties and the creation of high paying jobs. And yet, the national dialogue on further development of the oil sands has been myopically focused on the climate agenda and climate policy, which have ignored a multitude of benefits that responsible oil sands development has brought to this country. Of the top 10 global producing oil nations, Canada is recognized as the most responsible producer across a broad range of metrics. The result of this myopic dialogue, however, is that we have created a set of national policies and regulations that make resource development and investment in Canada uncompetitive with the rest of the world. Only one greenfield oil sands project has been approved and built since 2013. Capital has left Canada to find more competitive jurisdictions. And Canada has ceded high paying jobs, taxes and royalties to countries like Russia, Iran, Iraq and the United States. Our uncompetitive national climate policies and regulations have not reduced global demand for oil by one barrel. It just means that the oil the world demands and the associated benefits are not coming from or to Canada. It does the country no service to negligibly reduce the impact of climate change over the next century. If we materially erode our social benefit network over the next 15 years. And yet we have an opportunity to course correct. If we recognize that we are in a global competition for investment and we choose to compete, we have the opportunity to become the energy superpower that our Prime Minister has advocated for. But continuing to add incremental costs and protracted expensive regulatory processes to the energy industry drives investment out of Canada. For example, the industrial carbon tax is unique to Canada. No other major oil producing nation in the world has one. The result is this tax does not incent decarbonization of the Canadian industry, but instead incents industry to invest outside of Canada. This is our time. We should be an energy superpower. And we need to take the right decisions to unlock investment and growth to the benefit of our economy and all Canadians. And with that, I'll open it up to your questions.
OPERATOR
Thank you. If you have a question at this time, please press the star one one on your touchtone telephone. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow up. One moment for our questions. And our first question comes from Dennis Fung with CIBC World Markets.
Dennis Fung (Equity Analyst)
You may proceed. Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions and congrats on a great quarter as well as the higher synergy capture. Thanks Dennis. How are You? Oh, not too bad. Nothing's going on in the markets this morning. My first question is related to a lot of the geotechnical work that you alluded to in your prepared remarks, especially on the Christina Lake north or MEG legacy assets. I was just curious, as you start to see some of the results of the redevelopment wells roll in, how does that maybe change the way you're either thinking about the development across the asset or even maybe looking at the facility expansion project or the optimization of that expansion project as you go forward?
John McKenzie (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, you know, as I mentioned, Dennis, I'll let Andrew fill in some of the blanks that I'm going to miss. But we really took the opportunity over this winter to really start to develop our own model for the Christina Lake north asset based on the geotechnical work that we had done. So we drilled about 40 delineation drives wells, shot 3D seismic and 4D seismic across the asset. And it's really confirmed, I think, what we knew before and that this is a, you know, tier one expandable resource, you know, that's got a reserve life that's measured in decades, not in years. So as we kind of go forward and think about development to that, the first step for us is to go after some of these redevelopment wells because this is oil that really comes back to the plant and doesn't consume any steam. So it really drives down the SOR and allows us to optimize the facilities as they are in place today. So what you'll see from us through the rest of this year as we finish that program is oil today. Production today is about 110,000 barrels a day and that's going to grow through the rest of the year. You'll see kind of month over month improvements as we bring on more and more development wells. The other thing that I mentioned is we put in our base case additional steam capacity, a fifth and a sixth otsg. The fifth is ahead of schedule. That's going to add additional steam capacity. We'll bring that on before the end of the year and you'll see, you know, the results of that come through in 2027. But you know, long story short is we're well ahead of what we put in our base case in terms of the FID case for mega. And it really, to your point, gets us thinking about what is the further expansion beyond the 150 that we've put into the public domain today. Andrew, I don't know if you've got anything else you want to add to that.
Andrew
Yeah, maybe just Add a couple of things, Dennis, Good morning, Dennis. Yeah, obviously just add a couple of sort of factoids on the redevelopment program. We target drilling 40 wells this year. Five are drilled, three are on stream. And I think as John mentioned in his opening comments, those three first three wells are delivering above expectation. I think as we look broader and further out as a function of that delineation program we executed here in Q1, we've identified something like 250 ReDev opportunities. So we've got a rich portfolio for years ahead of us there. And then on the facility optimization, just add one more detail there. We actually got three waves of facility projects that are all on the go at the moment. First one is indeed the fifth OTSG coming on later this year. Second one is an expansion of the water and oil treating facility. We call that the facility expansion project. But what we're also looking at is actually looking at an opportunity to connect the two facilities so to connect CLN to the CL facility. And that's really where the next big wave of synergies comes. And yeah, frankly, probably a great opportunity at the Investor day here in Q1 2027 to provide you a good update on that. And I'd say with some confidence we're going to deliver this year's synergy target of $150 million. In fact, we're going to exceed that. And I'm equally very confident that we're going to deliver and exceed the $400 million per year synergy target for 2028.
John McKenzie (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, you know Dennis, this has just been a great acquisition for us, you know, for us to be able to get such a huge tier one resource that sits right next to what we do and is right in the wheelhouse of what we do and is going to provide, you know, decades of returns to investors. It's just been a, a terrific acquisition and we're really happy with what we got in that acquisition.
Dennis Fung (Equity Analyst)
Definitely really appreciate that color from both of you in terms of the opportunity set going forward. Staying in the for my second question and staying in the upstream, I wanted to focus in on Sunrise again. From your prepared comments, it sounds like you're getting close to that 70 ish or 70,000 plus barrel a day level at that asset and you don't even have all these kind of new well pads or well pads online. Can you talk towards where maybe the next phase of maybe bottleneck situations happen to be at the Sunrise asset? Is it more facility driven? How do we think about a call it exceeding the opportunities that you've highlighted in the 2028 timeframe. And what does that kind of involve or look like on a go forward basis?
John McKenzie (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, you know, Dennis, one of the things that, you know, we haven't been sitting on our hands at sunrise and you haven't necessarily seen the production growth until this quarter, but we've always taken the opportunity to debottleneck the plant in preparation for where we're going with this. So we've done a lot of work on the steam systems, a lot of work on the cooling systems, a lot of work on water handling as well as cooling in that plant. And you know, one of the things that may be somewhat invisible to you, in the last quarter we took the opportunity to take one of the two trains down to do some overhead steam work and we ran one train at 50, 51 to 55,000 barrels a day. So there's lots of capacity inside this plant to continue to ramp up production as we go forward. And I think you're kind of quite right to note that with even just the first few wells from the first of the V pads coming on, we're kind of 68,000 barrels a day. So we think there's lots of opportunity before we hit the next constraint inside this plant. And, you know, it's something that we're going to take a hard look at going forward is how do we go beyond 75,000 barrels a day at sunrise because it's an immense resource and a lot of good work has already happened in terms of debottlenecking those facilities in preparation for going higher.
Dennis Fung (Equity Analyst)
Thanks, John. I appreciate the caller.
John McKenzie (Chief Executive Officer)
I'll turn it back. Great. Thanks, Dennis.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Next question is from Meno Hulseoff with TD Cowan. Please go ahead.
Meno Hulseoff (Equity Analyst)
Thanks. And good morning, everyone. I'll start with a question on market capture, if that's okay. You mentioned, I believe you mentioned potential normalization of the 114% that you achieved in Q1 in the coming months and in quarters. And I know there's a lot of moving parts here, but what do you think market capture normalizes to? And more specifically, can we expect a higher floor on that measure going forward relative to what you were talking about in late 2025?
John McKenzie (Chief Executive Officer)
Well, I think we continue to push you towards 70%, Menno, but I'll let Eric speak to this in a little bit more detail.
Eric
Yeah, thanks, John. Hi, Menno. Yeah, it's a great question. I would say certainly a very good quarter and very proud of what the team delivered. I would say it's certainly built on the back of strong Operations and strong commercial optimization. We expect that to continue. Continue absolutely no change in that performance. I think when I look at the market environment in the first quarter, there were a number of things that I think very much favored or supported. I think our configuration. And so you look at the heavy diff widening that plays certainly into our portfolio and how we're built to process heavy crude. I think the strength of diesel as well as jet again I think reinforced our configuration and gave us an opportunity there for a higher market capture. And I would also point to the relative pricing of secondary products relative to gasoline. So with those secondary products pricing strongly relative to gasoline, it gives us a higher market capture potential. So you put all those things together in the first quarter and you come up with a pretty strong number that we're proud of. As I look Forward into the second quarter and as John talked about it normalizing to 70%, there's a couple factors I'd maybe call your attention to. One on the feedstock side, I would say when you look at some of the pricing around domestic light sweet crudes relative to ti, so crudes that we do run, that is becoming increasingly expensive and widening relative to that TI marker that that impacts the market capture available to us to the negative. I would also point to, as I mentioned, benefiting us in the first quarter as the gasoline crack strengthens and it widens against that secondary product pricing that also impacts the market capture available to us. So while our performance we expect to stay the same, expect to have really good reliability, really good operations and really good commercial optimization. The market environment as it evolves into the second and third quarter and it's frankly seasonal, you see it every year these factors show us that our market capture potential will be lower as we get into 2Q and 3Q and again that's back into that kind of 70% range that we've talked about previously.
Meno Hulseoff (Equity Analyst)
Thank you, that was very helpful. Maybe the follow up question is on because it's getting a lot of airtime. Christina Lake North, the Christina Lake North development program you mentioned, I believe another 250 locations. And so my question is, is 40 wells per year a reasonable cadence or would you consider accelerating that a little bit in 2027 and 2028? I'm just asking that because I'm assuming
John McKenzie (Chief Executive Officer)
that would be close to the top of your opportunity set in terms of full cycle returns. No, I, you know, I'm going to let Andrew answer this more fully. And you're absolutely right that you know the opportunity set continues to grow and you know, the 250 locations that we had, you know, are not all equal. But you also have to remember two mental we've got two well pads that we're starting up this year as well. And so you know, the pacing and staging of your redevelopment really is limited by the internal constraints that you have inside your plant and your oil and water handling systems. But you know, as we go forward, what you should expect from us at Christina Lake north, as we talked about, is steadily increasing production, steadily decreasing SOR and then with the additional more steam, you're going to see a material movement in the production. But the pacing and staging of redevelopments and redrills to your point, is not yet optimized. And that's something that we'll lay out when we get into investor day in January.
Andrew
I don't have a lot to add actually. John, that's really an optima. It's really an optim speaking. It's really an optimization of a fully integrated system between the subsurface and the facilities. And obviously we're going to, we lean towards the redevelopments because they come on with instantaneous oil and such low sors.
Meno Hulseoff (Equity Analyst)
Thanks Andrew. I'll turn it back.
John McKenzie (Chief Executive Officer)
Great. Thanks Mano.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Next question is from Alexa Petrick from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Alexa Petrick (Equity Analyst)
Good morning team and thank you for taking our questions. Our first one is just around capital allocation priorities. I mean as we think about the elevated commodity price environment and incremental cash flow generation and any updated thoughts on how you're balancing debt pay down and capital returns.
Cam Sandar (Chief Financial Officer)
Morning Alexa, it's Cam. You know, I think at the highest level I would say not a lot has changed. You know, our, you know, our framework, I would say we've, you know, kind of had intact now for the last few years. I think first what I would start with is, you know, we've set our capital program this year. You know, we've got our plan with our growth projects continue to progress. We've got embedded growth in our business going into the fourth quarter of this year into next year. So that 5 to 5.3 billion of capital spending, you know, you shouldn't expect any change there. That is, you know, even though we are seeing higher prices than what we budgeted for at the beginning of the year, I think our plan as it relates to organic capital is unchanged. I think beyond that, you know, obviously you saw we also increased our dividend and again that's kind of normal. Course I would say too that that dividend needs to be sustained and fully funded in a Lower price world. And that's really anchored to the growth that you're seeing in the portfolio, not just this year, but even as we think about where we're going to be in 2027, 2028 and then beyond that, really it comes down to, you know, what is our kind of driver between deleveraging and share repurchases. And I think, you know, what we've outlined before is that we've got a guideline in place where as the debt moves from what was around 8 billion down to 6, we're going to kind of be 5050 and then we'll move to a higher proportion of buybacks as we get the debt down further. But one of the things I would say is clearly this price environment we're in today, it is not what we expected when we started the year. I think we are really viewing it as something that's more short term in nature. So with that in mind, I think we're probably taking a bit of an opportunity to probably have a bit of a bias towards more debt reduction versus buybacks. Not to say that we don't see a return on the buyback. I think we continue to see a return and you'll see a stay in market. But when you think about proportions of our free cash flow, I think nobody should be surprised to see us have a little bit higher proportion to deleveraging in the short term.
Alexa Petrick (Equity Analyst)
Okay, that's very helpful. And then our follow up is really just around West White Rose. I mean any color there, around what the gating items are for First Oil and timing around the cash flow inflection.
Andrew
Sure. Andrew, why don't you take that one and maybe just kind of draw a path between where we are today and first Oil? Yeah, sure, absolutely. Yeah. So West White Rose, as John talked in his opening comments, projects completed, we've got the operating authority from the regulator and drilling has commenced. So over the next, the first well that kind of comes in three phases. Phase one is obviously drilling the well. So this is a roughly 6,000 meter long well. It's a horizontal well. We'll do that. Then we go into the completion phase and then the tie in phase. So drilling completion and tie in, that's what we're saying we should have completed by late Q3 of this year and then hence get the first production on stream. Having done that, we immediately go to the second well and then we just continue through a repeat of that program through for roughly 30 to 35 wells which will take us through the next four years. So we'll see first production here, late Q3 this year and then a steady ramp up of production from the west. White rose from well current zero up to a plateau of 85,000 barrels a day by late 2028. Noting that's the gross volume.
John McKenzie (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, it's a pretty exciting day for us. This has been a long time coming and going through the commissioning process and the work that was done on SIT really confirmed that the construction was first rate, high quality. And we really got this to a point now where we're in operations and so the project's now behind us, really happy with how it's functioning. Technically everything is kind of all systems go as we kind of drill the first of seven wells in the first well package. So very exciting day for us.
Andrew
Actually John, can I just add one thing? I think it's an exciting day for many people, for us as an organization, for our partners, but also for the province of Newfoundland. This is a world class project that's come on stream, that's going to benefit the companies, but also Newfoundland for decades to come. Pretty cool. Thank you. I'll turn it over.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Thank you.
Greg Partee (Equity Analyst)
Our next question is from Greg Partee from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Yeah, thanks. Good morning and thanks for the detailed rundown. John, I couldn't help but think a little bit about your comments on the regulatory framework and carbon taxes and so forth. And I'm. I'm trying to get at the root of that a little bit in terms of has there been any change perhaps in your thinking maybe over the last year or so as it relates to regulatory reform, decarbonization, export market diversification and so forth. How are you and perhaps. Well, you can only speak for yourself, I realize, but are you thinking about that differently now than you might have a year ago? Has anything changed that way?
John McKenzie (Chief Executive Officer)
No, Greg, I think we've been entirely consistent through time. You know, what we have to do, and I think this was part of where the MOU was going is we have to have a view where pathways, production and pipelines all come together. And the reality is that without comprehensive policy reform that allows for significant investment in this base in the production piece is lacking. And so we need a set of policies that are consistent with investment. We need a set of policies that recognize that we as Canadians compete for capital and we have to compete in a different way. We have not grown oil sands on a greenfields basis, you know, for over 10 years. And if we are going to fill a million barrel a day pipeline to the west coast, it's got to come with growth and that growth has to come from capital and that capital has to be competitively advanced vis a vis where else it can go?
Greg Partee (Equity Analyst)
Okay. Okay. All right, thanks for that. I think that's clear then. John, in the past, even back at the refinery tour in Ohio back in the fall, part of the strategic role that your U.S. downstream plays is just the potential for congestion in Western Canada. Another there have been, there's debottlenecking underway, there's various initiatives on the main line and so on. But what's the in house view at Cenovus in terms of what maybe the egress picture is looking like out of Western Canada? Is the concern around congestion maybe as
John McKenzie (Chief Executive Officer)
much as it was before? Yeah. I'm going to let Jeff answer the back part of your question, but you're absolutely right. Our refineries provide us with the most economic egress out of this province versus you know, any other opportunities we have. What is kind of interesting right now is we have a number of opportunities to a number of different locations by a number of different midstreamers that potentially could offer, you know, additional egress to producers going forward. But Jeff, maybe you can talk a little bit about how you're seeing the environment for egress and midstream participation in
Jeff
ex Alberta egress for sure, John and Greg. I think John hit the high level on it really well, which is, you know, through some pretty hard work over the past couple years by Synovus and by industry and a number of midstream partners, we are seeing a nice steady flow of creative egress alternatives come to market. I would say, you know, we've seen what's come to pass already. So only speak of the things that are being worked on are looking to the future, you can quickly name at least three different projects bringing north of a million barrels a day of egress to diverse locations, all potentially in service by the end of this decade. And that's a big change from 2024. Right when trans Mountain came on and there was maybe a large feeling that this might be the last. I think industry has proven creative and responsive to need. And as we said last quarter, don't be surprised to see Synovus continue to support these initiatives.
Greg Partee (Equity Analyst)
Okay, terrific. Thanks very much on both fronts.
John McKenzie (Chief Executive Officer)
Great, thanks Greg.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Next question is from Travis Wood from NBC National Bank. Please go ahead.
Travis Wood (Equity Analyst)
Yeah, thanks. And good morning everybody. Question is kind of back to what Meno was talking about in terms of market capture. But rather than the market capture, would you guys be able to share some thoughts around how you're able to capture some of the physical flow disconnects in global pricing. Whether that's shifting how you're moving the crude itself, or maybe shifting and optimizing the refined product sales into other markets. And on that refined product side, I'm kind of thinking more jet fuel or diesel opportunities that you see kind of as an ad hoc basis through the marketing and trading team as well.
John McKenzie (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah. So, Travis, we're kind of doing this in two places. One of the places that we have opportunity is on the crude side and particularly on the east coast of Canada where we're seeing the physical and financial markets disconnect. I'll let Jeff talk a little bit about that and then Eric can kind of fill in on how we're thinking about the product market and our ability to capture premiums there. Great.
Jeff
So, Travis, just in terms of crude side, we all watch and have seen benchmarks do what they do and move around, but when you get into the physical market, there's a lot of things that are less seen. I would say off the east coast, we've managed to find some attractive prices. Pricing, both dated Brent versus Brent. When you get into the more physical nature of things, dated Brent sets that price and you can look for lots of headlines on it, but those prices have been anywhere from 20 to 40 plus dollars greater than Brent. So pretty significant. In addition, as you look to grade and location differentials across all of light crude, we've seen opportunity to sell at increased differentials of things would normally be a dollar a premium, moving to 6, 7 and $8 premium. So we continue to extract that and then we have a number of assets on the pipeline side that allow us to move crude around and there's opportunities to move between grades to gather incremental value. It really has shown up really significantly in the physical market, which is less observable than the benchmarks. So we just continue to opt in that range. And I think Eric will go on the refined product side.
Eric
Yeah, thanks, Jeff. And maybe just a little more on the feedstock side. Building on Jeff's points, I think you've been able to see some really good optimization as we look at standing up the network. So whether that's understanding how do we really find the optimization opportunities from the upgrader, how do we actually optimize across our entire network with Superior and Toledo and down into Lima, a number of opportunities we see and have been able to capture. I think I would also point to being able to optimize and bust through some constraints inside the refinery to maximize our heavy crude and actually maximize the high tan portion of the heavy crude, which becomes quite an advantage for us. So a lot of good work, even on the feedstock side, optimizing within the network. I think turning to the product side, continuing to find ways, again as a network to really optimize across the portfolio. You know, it point to, as I've spoken before, around the marine facility at Toledo and using that to find new means of egress, continuing to work to figure out how do we monetize our octane length and find different outlets for octane products as opposed to just finished products, I think has been a huge opportunity. You know, really optimizing within our jet and diesel make and making sure the right molecules are going to the right places to get the most advantaged products into the market. And so our jet make is something that I think was really strong as we looked at how do we optimize the kit in the first quarter. And as I spoke to some of the market capture performance, that spoke to seeing the opportunity in the market and then within the physical refinery being able to do that. So I think a lot of different moving pieces that all add up to strong performance in the quarter.
Travis Wood (Equity Analyst)
Okay, no, that makes sense. And I know, John, you've kind of been continuing to talk about 70% market capture, but if the team continues to optimize both organic feedstock for the refiners, optimize global sales from the upstream side, and then capture much more robust product pricing downstream, is there a scenario where you think you could continue to outperform that 70%, given the initiatives the team seems to be working on?
John McKenzie (Chief Executive Officer)
There's always a scenario where you capture more than 70, and there's always a scenario where you capture less. And, you know, to the point you're making. Travis, we recognize that this is somewhat of a clumsy marker in terms of trying to gauge performance. And what we've committed to do is come to you at our investor day in January and provide a lot more fidelity into how this works. But I don't want to front run that, and I don't want to get out over my skis in terms of promising something well above 70%. But suffice it to say, we're really pleased, we're really happy and really proud of the work that Eric and the downstream have done to achieve the kind of market capture rates that we've got. And we look forward for more to come. We're obviously not finished, but we owe you a better Explanation going forward as to how you can, you know, gauge and forecast our refining business and that's to come.
Travis Wood (Equity Analyst)
Okay, well, we'll wait for January and keep asking you on the quarterly calls. I appreciate the color.
John McKenzie (Chief Executive Officer)
I'd be disappointed if you didn't. Travis.
Travis Wood (Equity Analyst)
Thank you, though.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Next question is from Manav Gupta from ubs. Please go ahead.
Manav Gupta (Equity Analyst)
Hi, quick question. Your weighted average crack spread for the first quarter, net of rinse was almost down $5 versus the last quarter. I know it's been only probably half a quarter, but can you give us some idea where this number is trending quarter to date? I would assume it's materially higher, but if you could give us some idea where that number is trending quarter to date for you guys.
Eric
Yeah, this is Eric. I don't have the specific number, but can certainly speak to a few things. I think as we saw in the first quarter, January and February were pretty lean. That's expected. That is pretty typical in PADD 2, particularly where you just have some really tough margin environments. We saw the strength start to return in March and operated into that environment where there's a supply disruption and working to place our products into that market. We've continued to see that strength into the second quarter here. There's a couple things I think about. Obviously we've got quite a bit going on in the world, but I think we look at the supply demand balance really being pretty tight. I think you've seen a number of folks move inventory into the market. So inventory sitting at relatively low positions. There's been seasonal maintenance going on as well as some unplanned maintenance throughout the pad. And so that makes a tight supply demand balance even tighter. And that really starts to strengthen the cracks. And so we've seen some really, really strong cracks and continue to put our good operations to work to make sure we're putting our products into that market. But that supply demand balance that we see I think continues to show some strong cracks here in the second.
Manav Gupta (Equity Analyst)
Perfect. And my quick follow up here is international crude prices are high. International gas prices are super high. Can you talk a little bit about how your international gas assets could be getting some tailwind maybe for a couple of quarters from what's going on. If you could talk about your international gas assets exposure over there.
John McKenzie (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah. And remember, Minav, that our international gas assets are really on a fixed price basis. So those are low volatility cash flows that we get out of Asia, China and Indonesia. So they don't necessarily see the exposure to the international gas price. But what tends to happen when LNG prices go up is the demand for our gas goes up as well. It's the first gas into Guangdong when LNG prices elevate the way that they have now, where we do see some benefit is on the associated liquids. Those trade at a Brent plus basis and we do capture additional margin on that. But you know, one thing I say about our Asian gas business, and we love that business because of its low volatility and certainty, but everybody kind of loves it when the international prices of gas are low. And then they always wonder why we're not getting a bigger margin when international gas prices are high. But it's been a fantastic business for us. But we don't necessarily participate in LNG prices as they go up and down.
Manav Gupta (Equity Analyst)
Thank you so much.
John McKenzie (Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks, Manaf.
OPERATOR
Thank you. I would like to remind you that if you are on the phone and wish to ask a question, please press star 11. Next question is from Patrick o' Rourke from ATV Coremark Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Patrick o' Rourke (Equity Analyst)
Hey, good morning, guys, and thanks for taking my question. Congratulations on another strong operational performance here, especially in the upstream. Hopefully this isn't redundant because you covered a lot of ground so far. But just taking a look at the downstream here and heavy throughput in the US segment was up in the quarter still, you know, if you were to look at nameplate, a little bit of potential upside to that, was the driver of that as you spoke to network optimization, or was this being driven by the heavy crude differential there? And what sort of impact does this have on your market capture going forward?
John McKenzie (Chief Executive Officer)
So I'm going to let Eric answer this question, but there's, there's a couple things that, you know, are bubbling beneath the surface. Eric mentioned. You know, the cracks were relatively low in January and February, and we obviously optimize our throughput based on commercial considerations. And then, you know, on the asphalt side, asphalt prices haven't necessarily kept pace with feedstock, and so we've adjusted there. So, you know, when you kind of look at that utilization rate, you've also got to think through all the commercial considerations that go in and around that. It's not entirely a mechanical reliability story. But, Eric, maybe you can provide some color.
Eric
Yeah, I think you hit it really well. Yeah, look, we're built and configured to run the heavy crude and that's what we do. I think as John alluded to, though, when we looked at the market environment and then certainly as the market started to strengthen, the asphalt prices did not follow the crude prices. And so there were some choices we needed to make around how do we position the kit economically in that environment. And so I think in terms of overall reliability, really, really strong quarter. But looking at market factors and understanding again some of that secondary pricing I talked to earlier, how is that pricing relative to the price accrued and how does that show how you optimize your network? That said, I will highlight a number of things we've been able to do to unlock heavy crude capacity. A lot of that comes down to reliability of our coking units. A lot of really good work to get after the reliability there, get cycle times down, get throughput up. And that really does enable the ability to process more heavy crude essentially for the same total throughput, which is a big advantage for us. Again, optimizing within just constraints in the refinery and just having a mindset to how do we continue to safely and reliably push our constraints to unlock incremental value. And I think really seeing some of the talent of the team come through in the ability to unlock those constraints and continue to push the business forward, I think is pretty exciting.
Patrick o' Rourke (Equity Analyst)
Okay, great. And this is maybe a bit more of a broader philosophical question, but really appreciate the advocacy for the industry there to start the call. I'm wondering, you've gone through a substantial growth phase here. Growth is in a sense tailing off a little bit. What would the sort of specific market conditions and regulatory parameters be that enormous opportunity set within the portfolio where we would see Synovus start to think about upticking the growth profile again here where it makes sense.
John McKenzie (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, and thanks for the question, Patrick. And you're quite right, we have seen some modest growth in the industry and you've seen some growth of Synovus over the past number of years. But you know, the way I would describe that growth is a lot of it comes from acquisition and mergers, and a lot of it comes from Brownfield and debottlenecking projects. I think the issue that we have to wrestle with is if we do want material growth and the province has suggested that it's looking to actually double production, we have to have a competitive market that allows for greenfield development. And greenfield development comes at a higher cost and a higher break even than the growth that you've seen to date. So things like what we've done at Narrows Lake or what we've done at Foster Creek, I would just describe those as optimizations, you know, versus fundamental greenfield growth. So without providing for a competitive set of policies that attract capital into this basin and allow us to meet those hurdle rates. You know, I think we're at a point where, you know, we have to be pretty thoughtful about a set of policy environments that really do allow us to grow and fill, you know, a pipeline that's desirous of moving another million barrels a day to the West Coast. Okay, thank you. Thanks, Patrick.
OPERATOR
There are no further questions registered at this time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. John McKenzie.
John McKenzie (Chief Executive Officer)
Great. And thank you, operator. Obviously, this concludes our conference call, and I'd like to thank everybody for joining. We certainly appreciate your interest in the company. I wish you all a great day. Thank you.
Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.
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