Keith Chiasson is Going to Make All His Projections Come True

January 25, 2019

Keith Chiasson is Senior Vice President, Downstream of Cenovus Energy Inc. Mr. Chiasson is responsible for optimizing the price Cenovus Energy receives for its products through marketing, transportation and refining. This includes all commercial activities associated with crude oil, diluent, natural gas, natural gas liquids and other hydrocarbon products produced or acquired by the company. Mr. Chiasson also manages Cenovus’ interest in its refining joint venture and is responsible for the Bruderheim rail terminal. In addition, he oversees supply chain management across the company’s operations. Mr. Chiasson joined Cenovus in 2016 to lead oil sands production operations. He’s a mechanical engineer with more than 20 years of experience in the oil industry, primarily with Imperial Oil and ExxonMobil.

In this exclusive 2,177 word interview with the Wall Street Transcript, Keith Chiasson demonstrates the complexity of managing both and oil and gas production company as well as the downstream refinery and shipping business.

“…We’re also a 50% owner in two refineries in the U.S., a joint interest owner with Phillips 66. Those refineries have refining capacity of 480,000 barrels a day, with a net to Cenovus of 240,000 barrels a day. And in 2015, we purchased the Bruderheim Energy Terminal, which is a crude-by-rail loading facility in Alberta, and it’s part of our strategy to create additional transport options for our products to capture global prices for our oil.”

Mr. Chiasson is proud of his company’s ability to deliver on its projections:

“Our number-one priority was to deleverage our balance sheet, which we’ve made significant progress on over the past year, and we’ll continue through 2019 reducing our net debt position. I think it’s very impressive when you think of a sustaining capital reduction of 70% from 2014 to 2018, and those costs are essentially locked in because it was structural changes to how we sustain that production.

And then also, being an industry leader in unit operating costs as well as SORs — steam-to-oil ratios — really positions the company well to take advantage as light heavy oil prices improve over time. This company has significant capability to generate free funds flow at commodity prices that we’re seeing today.”

Get the full 2,177 word interview in the Wall Street Transcript and get the complete, verbatim picture.