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Cenovus Energy plans to invest a good chunk of its $4 billion to $4.5 billion 2023 capital budget to further optimize Foster Creek and Lloydminster thermal oil projects.
The budget plan, released on Tuesday, is based on expected total upstream production of between 800,000 and 840,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day next year, a year-over-year increase of more than three per cent.
Production guidance for the Lloydminster thermal projects is between 105,000 barrels per day and 115,000 bbls/d.
Cenovus expects to invest between $1.2 billion and $1.7 billion in optimization and growth capital to continue asset enhancement and growing production to maximize shareholder value.
Growth and optimization capital will be allocated towards debottlenecking work at the Lloydminster Refinery which will increase the integration of the Lloydminster complex with Cenovus’s oil sands assets, including processing production from Foster Creek.
That plan is part of the company’s so-called Rewire Alberta project announced in the 2022 budget.
The current year plan will increase capacity at the refinery by eight per cent to as much as 31,500 bbls/d once the debottlenecking is done.
