oilsand operator

The Long Case for Canadian Oil Sands Trust

Tom Katinas was refinery manager at Esso's Fawley Refinery in England prior to coming to Syncrude to take over as President and CEO of Syncrude (as an Exxon secondee). the following is an article highlighting some of the allegations and aftermath of the Katinas leadership period. www.dailyecho.co.uk/mo...

The Long Case for Canadian Oil Sands Trust

Syncrude Canada Ltd., the operator of the assets which COS relies on for its revenue, will underperform in the near term. COS' CEO got in bed with Exxon and ousted Syncrude's home grown and experienced Sr Mgmt team in Q1/Q2 2007 and replaced them with a team of 20+ Exxon Mobil staffers who have never run anything as large and complicated as an oilsand operation which requires 4000+ employees with skills in mining, mineral processing, refining and utilities. These new guys ran refineries in mild climates with stable, subservient workforces. The new Syncrude leadership has no idea how to integrate a mine with a process plant, do it in extremely harsh weather conditions, and in an extremely competetive labour environment. The previous leadership knew that human talent was the key to ensuring success in the extremely challenging business. The "new guys" have belittled the efforts of previous leadership, attempted to imtimidate employees, driven safety reporting underground and generally misread what is required to make an enterprise such as an integrated oil sand operation run smoothly. Production in 2008 has been far below capacity, experience employees are leaving to Suncor, Shell and Petro-Canada in record numbers. COS will make money in the short term, but will be significantly below its capability. In the long run the strategy to bring in outside leadership talent is a good move....but there will be a short term price....and the question will be how long will it take for the Syncrude operation to regain the reputation that the likes of Eric Newell, Jim Carter, and Charles Ruigrok earned for the enterprise. My industry peers estimate 5-10 yrs as bright young engineers and technicians are shunning the archaic management practices of the current Exxon leaders in favour of the enlightened management teams at Shell, Petrocan and Suncor.

Look for more excuses on poor production performance. funny how the well known Arctic weather never was a cause for extended production interuption over the last 40yrs...only when the warm weather yanks arrive!!!!