2005 Outlook
Syncrude’s Joint Venture owners have established a production target range of 80-86 million barrels of SSB (219,000-236,000 barrels per day) for 2005, which includes the effects of a major coker maintenance turnaround, as well as maintenance and repairs on other units in the first quarter. The upper end of this range assumes strong operational performance for the remainder of the year.
Total operating costs are targeted at $22.17 per barrel SSB. The cost target assumes a natural gas cost of $6.90/GJ. Total operating costs include production costs, overburden removal costs, turnaround and catalyst costs, purchased energy, and corporate administrative and research expenses.
The Joint Venture owners have approved a 2005 capital program consisting of $2 billion of capital expenditures and $224 million of development expense.
Approximately $1.3 billion of the capital expenditures are for completion of construction work on the Upgrader Expansion project. By late 2005 many of the project’s new and revamped units are scheduled to commence start-up procedures as they transition from construction to operations.
A further $337 million is for completion of an auxiliary mine train at Aurora and an additional oil sand production system at Mildred Lake that will replace bitumen production from the original Mildred Lake base mine area. This project commences operations in 2005 and will improve the efficiency and reliability of bitumen production operations.
Spending on engineering, procurement and construction associated with the Syncrude Emission Reduction Project is expected to reach $31 million.
The remaining capital expenditures are for base plant sustaining capital projects, including reliability, efficiency enhancement and environmental initiatives.
Development expense associated with Stage 3 and other major projects is budgeted at $133 million, and $91 million has been planned for base plant development and other initiatives.
Actions taken by Syncrude in response to stakeholder concerns raised during our stakeholder engagement processes are noted throughout this report; these actions are indicated by the 
symbol.
