Suncor seizes market crown from Imperial

Oil sands giant Suncor Energy has unseated Imperial Oil as the stock market leader among Canadian oil producer-refiners.

Buoyed by a doubling of Suncor’s profits to C$1.2 billion in the final quarter of 2005, investors drove the company’s shares to a 52-week high on Jan. 26 and its market value to C$42 billion, outstripping Imperial’s C$39.4 billion.

It was a strong rebound for Suncor whose northern Alberta output was slashed by 50 percent after a fire in early 2005. However, the company has since recovered C$715 million in insurance claims covering damage and business interruption, with repairs and the installation of a new unit lifting capacity to 260,000 barrels per day.

Chief Executive Officer Rick George said a C$3 billion expansion, 30 percent complete and still on budget, should increase production to 350,000 bpd by 2008.

—Gary Park