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Above: A shovel loading haul trucks at Suncor’s Fort Hills oil sands mining operation.
Industry Partner Spotlight
This story was provided by Suncor, a CIM Industry Partner, and appears in the December 2025/January 2026 issue of CIM Magazine (view it in flip format here).
Where mining matters, Suncor leads
Strengthening mining performance at scale
Mining has always been at the core of Suncor’s oil sands business. Today, the company’s sharpened focus on competitiveness, operational discipline and technology deployment is driving measurable gains in safety, reliability and productivity.
Suncor is Canada’s largest integrated energy company, producing approximately 850,000 barrels per day. Roughly 70 per cent of its oil sands production comes from mining operations, with the balance from in-situ facilities using steam-assisted gravity drainage. While the long-term production mix will gradually shift more towards in-situ extraction, mining remains a critical part of the company’s portfolio.
Over the past three years, Suncor has intentionally refocused on the fundamentals.
“We didn’t need to reinvent Suncor; we needed to get back to doing the fundamentals exceptionally well,” said Peter Zebedee, executive vice-president of upstream. “We already have tier-one assets, long-life reserves and people who know how to run these mines. Our job is to take them to their full potential.”
That refocus began with safety. In large-scale surface mining operations, where ultra-class haul trucks, shovels, conveyors and support equipment operate continuously, risk management is inseparable from performance.
“You cannot run a high-performing mine unless it’s a safe mine. The two go together,” Zebedee said. “In a high-traffic, heavy-equipment environment, there’s no margin for shortcuts.”
Over three years, Suncor reduced injuries and safety incidents by 70 per cent, moving into the top tier of its peer group for safety. The improvement is attributed to proactive hazard identification, stronger field-level engagement and disciplined execution of core procedures.
At the same time, Suncor has expanded its use of autonomous haulage systems to improve consistency and uptime. Following the successful deployment of the world’s largest autonomous ultra-class haul truck fleet at a single mining site at its Base Plant last year, Suncor is now expanding the technology to its Syncrude operations. The investment includes additional autonomous trucks and a modernized dispatch system.
“Autonomy is all about consistency,” Zebedee said. “The trucks operate at optimized speeds, reduce unnecessary idling and deliver repeatable performance shift after shift.”
Autonomous trucks are monitored from a central control centre, removing operators from high-traffic areas and reducing their exposure to potential hazards. For operations moving millions of tonnes annually, incremental gains in cycle times and availability compound quickly.
“When you’re operating at this scale, small improvements add up,” Zebedee said. “Better dispatch decisions, more predictable haul cycles and improved coordination translate into stronger safety, stronger asset utilization and cost savings.”
Mining in the oil sands requires significant upfront investment, but it delivers long-life, low-decline production. Suncor’s proven and probable reserves represent decades of future supply.
“Very few operators globally have this kind of long-life, large-scale resource base,” Zebedee said. “It’s delineated, engineered and developable with the equipment and technology we have today.”
That scale, combined with disciplined cost management, has strengthened Suncor’s competitive position. The company now has a sustaining capital break-even in the low $40 WTI per barrel range, supported by ongoing improvements in reliability and fleet performance.
“Equipment reliability, maintenance planning and dispatch execution are levers you control every day,” Zebedee said. “If you manage them well, you build resilience into the business.”
Technology continues to play a role, from autonomous fleets to one of Canada’s largest industrial drone programs, which gathers real-time data across sites to support monitoring and planning. Leadership emphasizes that tools alone do not drive performance; they enable better execution.
For Suncor, mining built the business. Today, operational discipline and targeted innovation are strengthening that foundation with a focus familiar to any mining operation: moving more material safely and reliably at lower cost, every day. Where mining matters, it is consistent execution at scale that sets Suncor apart.
