First quarter numbers are all down for Calgary-based Canadian Oil Sands.
It says profit fell 44%to $177-million because unplanned outages at the Syncrude mine lowered production.
In the first three months Syncrude produced over 260-thousand barrels per day, down more than 34-hundred.
It has decided to lowered its production targets for the year by 5% to between 100 to 110-million b-p-d.
CEO Marcel Coutu says in a release that Syncrude has done the maintenance needed to fix the extraction issues and is investigating the root cause of the outages in the upgrader.
COS owns the largest stake at 37-percent in Syncrude Canada oil sands mine; the largest project of its kind in the world.
Bitumen from Syncrude is upgraded into synthetic crude, which refineries can handle easier.
Syncrude’s other owners include Imperial Oil, Nexen, Suncor Energy, Sinopec, Mocal Energy and Murphy Oil.
May 1st, 2013
