Well, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It is 10:30 exactly, apparently, and I am calling the meeting to order. My name is Michael Wilson. I am the Chair of the Board of Suncor Energy Inc. I would like to introduce the people sitting next to me. We have Mark Little, he is not little, our President and newly appointed CEO. Alister Cowan, our Executive Vice President and CFO. Arlene Strom, our Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary. Steve Williams, who you all know, who formerly retired from his position this morning. On behalf of Suncor's directors and management, it is my pleasure to welcome you to the 2019 Annual General Meeting of Shareholders of Suncor Energy. I would now like to turn it over to Arlene for a traditional territorial acknowledgement.
Thanks, Mike. Many of Suncor's operations are located on the traditional lands of Aboriginal peoples, and we are committed to meaningful relationships with them. Together, we hope to be on a journey of discovery and reconciliation. Guided by treaty rights, the Constitution, and the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, we are looking for ways to build meaningful, long-term, and mutually beneficial relationships. We are pleased to acknowledge that today's AGM is being held on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot and the people of the Treaty 7 region in Southern Alberta, the Stoney Nakoda, the Siksika, the Kainai, and the Piikani nations. The City of Calgary is also home to the Métis Nation of Alberta, Region III. We believe that observing and acknowledging a traditional territory in meetings like our AGM is an important way to show our respect for Aboriginal peoples.
It is also a reminder, as Elder Casey Eagle Speaker reminded us a couple of years ago, that we are all treaty people. At Suncor, we seek to walk side by side Indigenous peoples and to remember that we are united in seeking a better world for our children, our grandchildren, and for future generations.
Thank you, Arlene. Before we begin the formal business, I would like to draw your attention to the exit procedures of the building. In the unlikely event of an evacuation, instructions will be given via the public address system. Please listen and follow to these directions. Once the announcement is made, we ask you to exit using the nearest exit and continue outside and away from the building. The evacuation assembly area is the Marriott Hotel main lobby, hopefully they know that, just across the street and further east along 9th Avenue. Please remain at this location until building staff advise, and that it is safe to return to the facility. Thank you for your attention. Now we will proceed with the business of the annual general meeting. There are several matters on the agenda this morning.
To save time for your questions at the end of the meeting, a number of shareholders have agreed to make and second all formal nominations or all formal motions, sorry. We've opened our meeting to members of media and guests. However, only shareholders and proxy holders may participate in the business of the meeting. If there are any questions or comments from the floor related to today's formal business, please stand, tell us your name, and whether you're a proxy holder or a shareholder. In order to ensure that discussions of the motions during the formal portion of the meeting is productive and efficient, each speaker will be limited to a speaking time of three minutes. All remarks must be relevant to the motion at hand. If you have any general questions, please hold them until the end of the meeting.
For those shareholders joining us by webcast, you're invited to submit your questions at any time using the question box on the webcast display. We'll be more than happy to respond to them during the question and answer period at the end of the meeting. Let's proceed with the business of the meeting, starting with the appointment of the scrutineers. Computershare Trust Company of Canada is the transfer agent and registrar of the company and is represented here today by Connor Doyle. If there's no objection, I will appoint them to act as scrutineers for this meeting to report on the number and percentage of shares represented at this meeting and to record and report on the votes cast on any poll that may be taken. You've all received the notice calling the meeting. I'll now ask that Arlene report on the mailing of the notice.
The notice calling this meeting was mailed on March 22nd, 2019, to all shareholders of record as of the close of business on March 11th, 2019, and has been provided to each director and to the auditors of the company.
Thank you. A copy of the notice and proof of the mailing will be filed with the minutes of this meeting. I'm advised that the scrutineer's report has been completed, and a quorum is present. Arlene, can you read the scrutineer's report?
I have received the scrutineer's report indicating that shareholders representing 78.48% of the Suncor shares are represented in person or by proxy.
Scrutineer's report will be filed with the minutes of this meeting. I declare the meeting regularly called and properly constituted for the transaction of business. I propose to take votes by ballot for the election of directors and the resolution of Suncor's approach to executive compensation. Based on the proxies received prior to the meeting, if we held a ballot on the appointment of the auditors, less than 2% of the votes would be cast against the motion. Therefore, I propose to take the votes by a show of hands for appointment of auditors. The 2018 annual report, which includes the financial statements for the year ending December 31st, 2018, and the auditor's report has been tabled. The annual report was mailed to shareholders requesting the report, and copies are available here today. We'd be happy to answer any questions concerning the annual report during the Q&A part of the session.
The next item on business is the election of directors. Suncor's bylaws state that the number of directors to be elected at any meeting of shareholders shall be the number of directors then in office, or such other number as has been determined by the board. There are currently 10 directors in office. The board has determined that nine directors will be elected at this meeting. Steve Williams and Dominic D'Alessandro are retiring from the board and will not stand for re-election. Mr. D'Alessandro was appointed to the board in 2009. Suncor has benefited greatly from Dominic's exceptional commitment, sound business judgment, as well as his focus on good governance. On behalf of the board and Suncor management, I wish to thank Mr. D'Alessandro for his service to Suncor and its shareholders.
Steve Williams, Suncor's Chief Executive Officer, announced in November that he'd retire at this meeting and would not stand for re-election as a director. During his tenure, Steve has shown exceptionally strong leadership, ensuring Suncor's reliability and efficient operations, and overseeing Suncor's profitable growth through strategic acquisitions and well-executed major projects, such as Fort Hills, which has raised the bar for industry in terms of successful project management and ramp-up. He's also been a champion of technology development and engaged with Aboriginal communities. The board deeply appreciates the commitment to Suncor and also his commitment to the industry. You will be missed, Steve. Of the nine directors nominated today, eight are independent, and one, Mark Little, is a member of management. Their backgrounds and experience are shown in the Suncor circular for this meeting.
May I have a motion to nominate the election of the board of directors, those candidates named in Suncor's circular for this meeting?
Good morning. My name is Anushka Spencer, and I'm a Suncor shareholder. I move to nominate the following candidates for election as directors. Patricia Bedient, Mel Benson, John D. Gass, Dennis Houston, Mark Little, Brian MacDonald, Maureen McCaw, Eira Thomas, Michael Wilson.
Thank you, Anushka. Can I have a seconder for the motion?
My name is Ryan McKay, and I'm a Suncor shareholder. I second the motion.
Thank you, Ryan. I declare the nominations closed. Nine directors are to be elected at this meeting, and nine persons have been nominated. I propose that we vote on this matter by ballot. Arlene will give instructions on the voting procedure.
On this ballot vote, all shares for which proxies in favor of management have been received will be voted in accordance with those instructions. Only proxy holders and shareholders who have not already returned a proxy or who wish to change their previous instructions have to complete a ballot if they wish to vote. We will use the blue ballot handed out during registration for this vote. If you wish to complete a ballot but did not receive one when you registered, please raise your hand. The ballot lists the nine nominees named in the management proxy circular. To vote or withhold from voting for each director, please complete the ballot by placing an X in the appropriate spot beside the name of each nominee. Once you have completed and signed the ballot, please raise your hand and it will be collected for counting.
Does anyone need any more time to complete the ballot? While the ballots are being counted, we will proceed to the next item on the agenda. The next item of business is the appointment of auditors. Management has proposed that KPMG LLP be appointed as the company's auditors. Since auditors are appointed by shareholders, I ask for a motion appointing KPMG LLP as auditors.
Good morning. My name is Derek Davies, and I am a Suncor shareholder. I move that KPMG LLP be appointed auditors of Suncor Energy Inc. to hold that office until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until a successor is appointed.
Thank you, Derek. Can I have a seconder?
My name is Judith Sparks, and I'm a Suncor shareholder, and I second the motion.
Thank you, Judith. Any discussion? You've heard the motion. Those in favor, please indicate approval by raising your hand. Any contrary? The motion is carried. The next item of business is the advisory vote on our approach to executive compensation. These types of advisory votes are often called say-on-pay resolutions. The results are considered non-binding but are a vehicle to allow shareholders to ensure their views are made known to the Board. As noted in the circular, in considering the company's approach in compensation in the future, the Board will take into account the results of the vote together with any feedback it receives from shareholders in the course of the Board's engagement. The form of motion set out in the circular follows the recommendation of best practice of the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance, and I now ask that the motion be made.
Good morning. My name is Emilita Roach, and I am a Suncor shareholder. I move on an advisory basis and not to diminish the role and responsibilities of the board of directors, that the shareholders accept the approach to executive compensation disclosed in the management proxy circular of Suncor Energy Inc., delivered in advance of its 2019 annual meeting of shareholders.
Thank you, Emily. Can I have a seconder for the motion?
My name is Chris Solomon, and I am a Suncor shareholder. I second the motion.
Thank you, Chris. You've heard the motion. Are there any questions or comments? Well, that's good to hear. If there are no questions or comments, I propose that we now vote on the matter. You've received proxies representing a total of 94% of the votes cast on this motion, which direct it be voted in favor of our approach to executive compensation. We'll follow the same ballot procedure as described by the Corporate Secretary earlier. We'll use the pink ballot handed out during the registration for the vote. Please mark the ballot with an X either in the box under the words "For" or in the box under the words "Against." When you've completed and signed the ballot, please raise your hand. Does anyone need any more time? While the ballots are being counted, we'll proceed to the next item on the agenda.
I'd like to now turn the meeting over to Mr. Steve Williams, who's retired today after seven years of service as Suncor's President and CEO, as well as Alister Cowan, Suncor's Executive VP and Chief Financial Officer, and Mark Little, our CEO. Mr. Little will now preside over a Q&A session after the end of the meeting. If you have any questions, I'd like to ask you to please raise them at that time.
Well, thanks, Mike, and good morning. It's nice to see so many familiar faces in the room. I guess as you'd expect, there's going to be a bit of a retirement theme to my remarks. I would like to start just by adding my thanks to Dominic for his long service with Suncor. If you've been here before, you know that I've always said that an annual general meeting is a time for reflection. This AGM is no different. It's also a time to look forward, and we'll be doing some of that today. When I first started in this role, I remarked that it was our time, meaning that with a strong strategy, the integrated business model you're becoming familiar with, the focus on running our business well, operational excellence, and a highly capable management team, it was Suncor's time to lead.
My view hasn't changed. Suncor has a compelling investor proposition and continues to be at the forefront in many ways. Certainly through our focus on operational excellence, capital discipline, and profitable growth that you've heard us talking to. Also through the improvements we've made with technology, innovation, and collaboration, and by consistently returning cash to you, our shareholders, through these cycles of commodity price that we've been seeing for the last several years. Our leadership also shows up through our environmental performance and the way we engage with shareholders, stakeholders, Indigenous peoples, and the communities where we operate. A steady, principle-based approach has served us and Suncor shareholders well. It's helped to establish stability that investors have been looking for, particularly through those periods of market volatility that I mentioned.
We remain one of the very few companies in our industry to be able to generate free funds through a wide range of business environments. This morning's first quarter results were another great example of that. It was also underscored in 2018 when we returned CAD 5.4 billion to shareholders through dividend and share repurchases. We also increased our dividend with 2019, making it the 17th consecutive year of increases. We increased our buyback program after buying back approximately CAD 5 billion worth of stock over the last two years. We've also executed on our plans. A significant accomplishment this year was the on-time commissioning and accelerated startup of Fort Hills. As you know, Fort Hills is our newest mining project and will deliver what the world needs in terms of good, sustainable energy for the next 50 years. We consider Fort Hills the new face of oil sands.
The new technology results in a greenhouse gas intensity on par with the average barrel of crude consumed on this continent now. Fort Hills reflects our evolving relationship with Indigenous peoples. We're very honored to have a significant equity partnership with two First Nations at the East Tank Farm, and believe it can serve as a model for future Indigenous participation in the broader energy development that's progressing. We also have been proactive, making significant investments in market access opportunities. Those, along with sound strategies, have shielded us, unlike most others, from the impacts of pipeline delays and the differentials we've been seeing. In short, 2018 was another great year for us, helping to add to our list of remarkable accomplishments over the years.
Thanks to a very strong senior leadership team and the efforts of countless employees, some of whom are here with us today, we've made significant strides in creating energy for a better world. We're demonstrating that we can be counted on to deliver consistently and in a way, always with shareholder, employee, and community interests in mind. You'll be hearing from Mark Little, Suncor's President and CEO, shortly. Let me just add my confidence that with Mark at the helm, I'm feeling very comfortable about the company's future. With that, thank you. Thank you all, and over to you, Alister.
Thank you.
Okay. Thanks, Steve, and good morning, everybody. Firstly, a big thanks, Steve, for being our President and CEO over these past seven years. It certainly has, part of the leadership team, been a great pleasure to work with you, and I have learned a lot from you. Thank you. You certainly had a profound impact on Suncor and our industry's reputation, both at home and abroad, and we're very grateful to have had that benefit of your leadership for us today. For my remarks today, I'm going to focus on two areas. One is Suncor's performance metrics and our investor proposition, what we would call the Suncor Advantage. Let me begin with Suncor's 2018 production, which totaled over 730,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
That included almost 630,000 barrels per day from oil sands, which included 144,000 barrels per day from our investment in Syncrude, and over 66,000 barrels per day from our new asset, Fort Hills, which was ramping up during 2018. In addition, we also produced just over 103,000 barrels per day from our offshore E&P assets. Overall, we grew production by 7% over 2017, even while Suncor was undergoing the largest maintenance program in our history. Our 2019 production guidance includes a 10% in growth in production, and that takes into account the industry-wide mandated production curtailments by the government of Alberta. We continue to work on our costs. With oil sands operations, cash operating costs coming out of approximately CAD 25 per barrel, and Fort Hills cash operating costs of CAD 31 per barrel.
As we begin to run Fort Hills at our targeted 90% utilization, we do expect these costs to come down, and we're projecting Fort Hills cash operating costs to be between CAD 23 and CAD 26 per barrel in our 2019 full-year outlook. Just for clarity, I want to make clear that all our unit operating costs at our oil sands operations in 2019 will be artificially higher due to the mandatory production curtailments that I mentioned. With a planned bi-directional pipeline between Syncrude and our Base Plant expected to be in operation by the end of 2020, we believe we can enhance Syncrude's long-term reliability and reduce the Syncrude cash operating costs below CAD 30 per barrel.
Of course, in the spirit of operational excellence, we're also continuing to look across our whole operation and organization to reduce costs, and we do recognize that technology will be key to achieving our cost reduction targets. As Steve mentioned, Suncor's significant strength was evident in our ability to generate cash. Our funds from operations for the year were over CAD 10 billion, and that was well past the CAD 9 billion we achieved in 2017. Suncor generated just over CAD 3.8 billion in discretionary free funds flow after paying for our sustaining CapEx and our dividend. Our integrated business continues to deliver value for shareholders. As Steve pointed out, we're able to do so regardless of the volatility in Canadian crude differentials. We are one of the few Canadian producers in this position, which speaks to our competitive advantage and what we believe is a compelling investor proposition.
While we've been able to generate significant cash from our operations, we've continued to be very disciplined in what we do with that cash. In 2018, we recorded about CAD 5.2 billion in capital expenditures, that was down from over CAD 5.8 billion in 2017. Our 2018 spend includes CAD 3.9 billion in sustaining capital and CAD 1.3 billion in growth initiatives. Our 2019 guidance for capital includes a total capital expenditure range of between CAD 4.9 billion and CAD 5.6 billion, and we'll certainly continue to be disciplined in our approach to the deployment of that capital. In stewarding the company in the interest of shareholders, we've been conscious to maintain the strength of our balance sheet. As of December the 31st, 2018, net debt to funds from operations stood at 1.5 times. We had a 28% metric for total debt to capital, and we have a liquidity of CAD 5.8 billion.
Our focus and commitment to maintaining the strength of our balance sheet has been recognized with a strong investment-grade credit rating. Our solid balance sheet continues to provide us with the ability to increase the return of cash to shareholders, and that's been through a combination of share repurchases and a consistent, sustainable dividend increases. 2018 saw us increase the dividend by 12% and repurchase approximately 64 million shares, which is equal to 4% of the shares in issue. Over the past two years, we have repurchased approximately CAD 5 billion of our shares. Of course, in February 2019, we approved a further 17% dividend increase and a CAD 2 billion increase in the share repurchase plan. Steve noted it's Suncor's time, and that perspective is supported by three key factors.
The resiliency of our free funds flow generation throughout various commodity cycles, our unique integrated business model, and finally, our long life, low decline, low-cost reserves, coupled with our long-term commitment and demonstrated action to improving our environmental and social impact across our operations. All of this, we believe, are competitive differentiators, which continue to demonstrate our stability and ability to take advantage of opportunities through the volatility. Thank you for your continued commitment to Suncor through your investment. We appreciate your support for Suncor, the oil sands, and our industry. With that, I'll now turn it over to Mark.
Thanks, Alister, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to echo your comments about Steve. Steve has brought operational excellence to Suncor, which has allowed us to thrive during his time as CEO. He's been an outstanding advocate for Suncor and for the industry, both here and abroad. I'm honored to be following in Steve's footsteps. Together with the Suncor board, the senior leadership team, and our employees, I'm looking forward to building on the strong foundation that has helped create Suncor. Alister spoke to the factors that set Suncor apart from most oil and gas producers. While we continue to leverage these strengths, we know that our continued leadership and competitiveness depends on us staying focused going forward. What does that mean? It means carefully looking at how we allocate our capital. As Alister mentioned, our expected capital range for 2019 is between CAD 4.9 billion and CAD 5.6 billion.
The majority of that capital is allocated towards sustaining and maintenance activities. We expect the remaining capital to be directed towards growing production, optimizing our assets, and through significant value-added projects. For example, the Syncrude and Suncor interconnecting pipeline, or various exploration and production initiatives, as well as technology development and deployment. In the medium term, our focus is on growing free funds flow by an additional CAD 2 billion by 2023. We expect to achieve that through a combination of E&P investments and oil sands debottlenecks. We also look to achieve margin improvements through projects such as the coke-fired boiler replacement and value chain optimization. We'll also strive for OPEX and sustaining capital savings through a variety of ways, including technology and innovation, which I'll speak to a little bit later.
Longer term, beyond 2024, we see the potential for significant production growth by sanctioning a number of in-situ projects. As we've indicated previously, we'll need to see tangible progress on our new pipelines before we sanction any new major developments. I fully understand that in my role, this will require my advocacy for our industry, including market access, for the benefit of Suncor and our stakeholders, Albertans and Canadians. I think it's important to put clearly on the record that there won't be any major shifts in the direction of the company. When it comes to the decisions that we are making, the success that we've achieved at Suncor is due to a disciplined approach, consistent and rooted in operational excellence, and a deep commitment to sustainability. That commitment to sustainability, the intertwined economic and environmental and social aspects of energy development, will continue at Suncor.
We will continue to engage with a wide variety of stakeholders in the spirit of collaboration. We will continue to be part of the public policy discussions and consultations. We will continue to improve our relationship with Indigenous peoples, and we will continue to be an active part of our communities through the Suncor Energy Foundation. One of the pressing challenges of our time is climate change. The challenge that lies ahead for all of us is how do we develop our resources in the best way possible while reducing the environmental impact and ensuring continued prosperity. Clearly, more needs to be done to address this complex issue, and Suncor will continue to be part of that journey. Technology will certainly be key.
We also know that to remain successful, we must continue to innovate to address the environmental as well as the economic and social challenges that we face. The good news is that Suncor has a history of innovation, moving from bucket wheel to truck and shovel, implementing new in situ technologies, and finding new ways to engage with Indigenous communities. We're working to drive down the emissions intensity of our operations through a greenhouse gas goal. With technology like we deployed at Fort Hills, we're bringing our production in line with the greenhouse gas emissions of the U.S. average refined barrel. One of the ways we share our progress is through our report on sustainability. We also have been transparent about what climate change means for our business in our climate risk report. These efforts will continue.
I'm particularly excited about the next chapter of our company, what we call Suncor 4.0. Why 4.0? It's meant to reflect the evolution of our company, with 1.0 being the establishment of Suncor and the starting to mine back in 1967. 2.0 was when we implemented technology and switched from bucket wheel to truck and shovel and made oil sands mining economic. 3.0 was our merger with Petro-Canada and the leveraging of our integrated model and our journey on operational excellence. In 4.0, we will apply digital technologies to accelerate operational excellence. We expect that this journey will help us to achieve world-class performance, continue to grow the value of our existing assets, drive and enhance our competitive advantage, and create the workplace of the future. Our early steps have been encouraging.
We've recently begun to work on a variety of areas, including robotics, artificial intelligence, and remote sensing technologies. In fact, last year, we invested CAD 635 million in technology development, deployment, as well as digital transformation. Our journey into the digital world will only accelerate. As we step further into this space, we're cognizant that it's not just about shiny new technology. It's really about our people, our culture, and our leadership, and how we can get our organization to work together to fully leverage technology to drive improved performance. Let me be clear, technology and innovation are part of our DNA. I have no doubt that with the ingenuity, the creativity, and the energy of our people, we will continue to lead. An equally important part of that journey and our future depends on the relationship that we, Suncor, and our broader society have with Indigenous communities.
Having been personally involved in the East Tank Farm partnership with Fort McKay and Mikisew Cree First Nations, I've deepened my understanding and appreciation of the importance of building mutual trust and respect. As we continue this journey, we remain focused on advancing our social goal. Changing the way we think and act towards Indigenous peoples. We will continue to support Indigenous youth, increase Indigenous participation in our workforce, and create ways for economic and social reconciliation. We will continue to listen and to learn. We know that shareholders have placed their trust in Suncor, in part for our unwavering focus on operational excellence, capital discipline, and profitable growth. We also know that you've invested in Suncor knowing that the board, the senior leadership team, and employees are committed to the highest standards of performance in economic, environment, and social areas.
We will remain focused on maintaining that confidence, not just through our words, but through our performance. On behalf of our board, our leadership team, and our dedicated employees, thank you for your support. Mike, I will now turn this back to you.
Thank you, Steve, Alister, and Mark. As you can see, our company has a great history and a great future ahead of it. For those on webcast, you wouldn't be able to see, but Steve received a standing ovation, which is well deserved. It's now time to complete the business of the meeting. We've received the scrutineer's report for the votes cast at the meeting. The secretary will now give the results.
I've received the scrutineer's report. I will read to you the percentage of votes cast in person or by proxy in favor of each of the items that were voted on by ballot. 99% for Patricia M. Bedient. 96% for Mel Benson. 98% for John Gass. 99% for Dennis Houston. 99% for Mark Little. 99% for Brian MacDonald. 97% for Maureen McCaw. 96% for Eira Thomas. 99% for Mike Wilson, 94% for the advisory resolution on executive compensation.
Thanks, Arlene. The scrutineer's report will be incorporated into the minutes of the meeting. I accept the scrutineer's report. I declare the board of directors will consist of nine nominees as named in the circular. I also declare that the shareholders have accepted the approach to executive compensation disclosed in Suncor's management proxy circular. If there's no other matters to be properly brought before this meeting, may I have a motion that the formal part of the meeting be terminated?
My name is Mark Hagee, and I am a Suncor shareholder. I move that the meeting be terminated.
Thank you, Mark. Can I have a seconder to the motion?
My name is Kinga Uto, and I am a Suncor shareholder. I second the motion.
Thank you, Kinga. Those in favor of the motion, please indicate your approval by raising your hand. Any contrary? Motion is carried. Ladies and gentlemen, I declare the formal portion of this meeting to be terminated. Strong word. I'd now like to open the floor to listen and respond to your questions. Before we get started, I'd like to take a moment to introduce Suncor's senior executive team, who we may call on to answer questions. You've already introduced Mark, our CEO, and Alister, our CFO, and Arlene, our Corporate Secretary and General Counsel. I'd like to ask the senior leaders to stand as I introduce you. Eric Axford, our Executive Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer. Bruno Franco, our Chief Transformation Officer. Michael MacSween, our Executive Vice President, Upstream. Steve Reynish, our Executive Vice President, Strategy and Operations Services.
Kris Smith, Executive Vice President, Downstream, and Paul Gardner, our Senior Vice President, HR. We'll now take questions from the floor. For those of you joining us by web, you'll see a box just below the slide display where you could submit your questions. Yes?
Hi, my name is Derek McDonald. I'm a Suncor shareholder. Could you please elaborate on your marketing strategy for the excess megawatts of power that you're going to be producing with your new power plant that's replacing your coke-fired boilers?
Yeah. Thanks for your question. This is a project that we're contemplating and we're getting ready for, we actually haven't come out with our plans associated with it right now. We're just in the final process of developing and finalizing all those plans. More to come on that, nothing's been released at this time. Thanks for your question.
Mark, a related question from the web. Does the recent election of Alberta and prospects of a lower carbon price change how you view the coke-fired boiler replacement project?
Yeah, great question. As I mentioned, one of the significant challenges of our time is climate change. So one of the huge focuses of the company is how do we proceed with our goal to reduce emissions going forward? We set a goal to reduce our emissions by 30% by the time we get to 2030, the emissions intensity. So the coke-fired boilers is one of those projects. Certainly our view is that although regulations will change and governments will change and go, we do believe that there's a common focus around how do we continue to improve the environment as we move forward and continue to grow our industry. So we have no expectation that the change in government will have any impact on our cogeneration investment.
As I mentioned earlier, though, we will have to get to our decision date and make the final decision sometime likely in the next 6 to 12 months.
Another question from the web is: What is Suncor's position response to the recent statements made by the new Alberta government stance on environmental initiatives put in place by the NDP and now being removed, revisited?
That's a great question. As I mentioned, I think one of the things we've realized, and Steve, I think, has emphasized during his time, is the fact that we need to continue the journey. In oil sands and in Canada, we need to lead the way. Whether it's in environment or social or economic, we need to continue this journey and be leaders around the world. Sustainability is a huge focus for us. It's one of the reasons that in the last little while, we put Eric into his role as Chief Sustainability Officer. So independent of the discussions that have happened, our journey around sustainability will continue. Although some of the details may ebb and flow, we will carry on this journey and we just feel that we have to be at the forefront of sustainability.
Another one from the ethernet, internet, wherever it is out there. Could you share your vision on technology development and deployment, priority focus areas, vision on how we accelerate deployment, especially in light of Suncor 4.0?
Great question. One of the things we realize is that although we've been able to take technology and implement it, and a great example would be our autonomous haul trucks. Our electric autonomous haul trucks, really interesting technology. We have a variety of these examples across the organization. I call this our cool initiative phase. What we're trying to figure out is how do we march together as a company and turn this into a strategy where we can leverage technology and go on this journey as a company together. In result, one of the things we realize is this is going to require much deeper alignment across the organization and literally having people from across our entire organization pulling in the same direction and leveraging technology.
Two significant activities that have just happened in that regards was several of our senior leaders, Mike and Chris and Steve Reynish, just hosted our first ever, in over 50 years of operations, our first ever operations, maintenance, and technical conference where we gathered together the top 1,000 operating leaders of the organization to talk about the journey and how we get aligned and how do we bring the standards together so that we can play as one team. The second significant thing that's happened, and we've just announced it and it'll be in place on May 13th, is we're going to create an office that will guide this activity and make sure that we resolve these differences across the organization before we move forward. Having everybody make different and independent decisions, we don't believe is the right approach for this strategy.
Bruno, who was just introduced by our Chairman, will actually lead that effort. We have some incredibly capable and significant leaders from across the organization that'll join Bruno in that and help us in getting the day-to-day focus and attention that we think we need to win in this area.
You must have ESP because the next question I think you've answered. Can you please elaborate on the Chief Transformation Office and role? I think you've covered that with Bruno.
I'm desperately tempted to get Bruno to answer this, but given that he won't start for two weeks, probably not. Yeah, I think that's it, is it's just really around helping guide the organization. We know organically, just with the independence and geography and separation, we do not believe that we can go on this journey without some significant leadership and coordination across the company. That's really what the Transformation Management Office is all about.
Another question. Long-term, can you comment on the expected mix of renewable energy versus traditional energy composition of the business?
It's interesting that as a company, we see one of the opportunities is constantly working on our environmental footprint and trying to figure out how do we reduce it. In some cases, that's around everything from energy efficiency up in oil sands, all the way through to things like the electric highway across Canada that has just been led by our Downstream organization, Kris Smith's organization. All the way into things like looking at technology. Some people may have heard that we made a small investment into a Quebec company called Enerkem. This company is looking to take municipal garbage and turn it into ethanol that we could blend into our gasoline pool. We're working not just as a financial investment, but trying to help in making the technology reliable and economic so that this could be used literally around the world.
We have a whole opportunity from investing in Evok through working on CRIN, all of these different areas to COSIA, one of the key initiatives that Steve helped coordinate, where companies from the industry literally share their intellectual property. We've shared now about 1,000 different technologies, about CAD 1.4 billion of intellectual property across the company, so that instead of spending money to invent what our competitors did, that we literally could share this and accelerate the pace of improvement around the environmental front across the industry. These are the journeys that we're on, we look forward to continuing not only on those journeys but continue to accelerate the pace.
I don't see any more questions, I'd like to thank everyone for joining us today. We appreciate your interest in Suncor, we look forward to connecting with you again. Whoops, sorry. You have a question, Dick? We'll get a microphone to you. Yeah. Mark, can you answer the question and carry the microphone down to Dick?
Yes.
Oh, okay. Well, that's okay.
I'm a long-term investor in Suncor, and you talked so much about technology, how you're going to improve the efficiency, operating cost, trading and operating cost. On the other side, you see the automobile manufacturers talking about the technology, reducing the emissions standard, and then introducing battery and electric car. Where do you see Suncor five years, 10 years from now? As an investor, am I safe to invest, say, 10 years in Suncor?
Right.
Do you think about this when you have a board meeting about future investments in Suncor expansions and all that?
Sure. It's a great question because the world's changing, and we need to change and adapt as we go on this journey. Maybe just to stand back and look at this in a macro sense for a minute. We have about 7.5 billion people on the globe, and we're on our way to 9 billion people. The other piece is we still have about 700 million people that are in poverty that we're working to lift out of poverty. The one thing that everybody universally agrees on is the amount of energy that we need going forward is going to continue to increase. When you go and look at standard of living and life expectancy in any nation in this world, you'll find out that there's a correlation. High standard of living and long life expectancy is high energy consumption.
The question is: Okay, so how do we go on this journey, and how do we play into it? Right now, about 81% of the world's energy comes from hydrocarbon-based energy, and probably a good third of that is actually coming from coal and then oil and gas. We actually test our strategy under three different scenarios. One that looks at high penetration of electric vehicles and transformation, solar technologies, those sorts of things. We look at one where it's volatile, and I would say to some degree, it's volatile in the sense that we have now, is that governments in one case are strongly for the environment and are not necessarily supportive in putting policies in place. We look at all these different scenarios, test our investments against those scenarios before we move forward.
One thing that is unusual in our business is that we have an enormous resource base. If you took the entire resource base, we literally could produce for close to 100 years at current production rates with all the resource that we have. When you go and look at it, you think most places in the world, if you're producing crude oil, crude oil production declines. One of the things we looked at is literally there's trillions of CAD we believe that are going to be required, even under an aggressive case of having electricity used in the transportation sector and penetration of electric vehicles. Right now, there's 1.2 billion vehicles on the surface of the Earth, and the vast majority of them are gasoline. There's really just a very small fraction of that that's electric. Will it change over time? Yes.
We believe that the world needs energy, and it's going to need more oil, and trillions of CAD are going to get invested. We tend to look at that, understand where we're going, how the world is changing. One of the reasons that we believe that Canada should play a significant role in it is there's only two countries in the world that are democratically controlled that have significant resource. It's Canada and the U.S. I come back to, we believe that with our care for the environment, our economic benefits, and the focus on social well-being of our population and our indigenous peoples across the country, we actually think Canada is an excellent place to continue to provide this resource into the world.
It's one of the reasons that we believe that the world needs more Canada, and Suncor plans to be part of that journey.
If I can add to that, yes, you should be a happy shareholder 10 years from now. I believe we have another question.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, new CEO. My name is Dick Haskayne. I'm a shareholder, many years, of Suncor. I just couldn't leave this room, and I'm sure most of you feel the same about operations. I sat on the Syncrude board more than 40 years ago, so I have some small appreciation of what you've gone through and what you inherited. I can't leave the room without saying additional compliments, of course, to our outgoing president. I also think it's important, and it's unusual in a room like this at this time, to recognize his partner, Rick George, who took on a very tough job a number of years ago. The two of these guys have made Suncor today what it is, what you've inherited, and God bless you. Thanks again, Steve. To you, Rick, all the best. Bye.
All right. Am I jumping the gun again? Thank you, everyone. Have a great day. That's the end of the meeting.