Suncor was the first big Canadian E&P company to report its Q4/24 this week. Access the company’s press release here.
The big news was that after having reached its net debt target in Q4, Suncor has shifted its return of capital strategy to be 100% return of excess funds to shareholders via share repurchases.
The evolution of Suncor’s net debt is quite a story, best illustrated by the chart below. Having peaked at over $20 billion after Q2 2020, the company has been able to lower net debt by more than $13 billion. As of Q4 2024, net debt now stands at $6.86 billion.
Jump to Suncor’s corporate production and financial data page on BOE Intel here.
Figure 1 – Suncor net debt vs. corporate production
The company’s share buyback program is also another chart worth showing as it provides a good visualization as well. Having briefly paused its reduction in share count during COVID to focus on debt reduction, Suncor has shown a strong ability to continue to lower its shares outstanding over the last several years. Over the last 4 years, Suncor has been able to lower its number of shares outstanding by almost 281 million shares, or 18.4% of its shares outstanding.
With share buybacks becoming the main focus now for excess funds, it’s likely that this trend continues or even accelerates.
Figure 2 – Suncor shares outstanding vs. corporate production
