Cenovus Energy Inc

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Synovus Energy's fourth quarter and year-end 2022 results. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. You can join the queue at any time by pressing star 1. Members of the investment community will have the opportunity to ask questions first. At the conclusion of that session, members of the media may then ask questions. Please be advised that this conference call may not be recorded or rebroadcast without the expressed consent of Synovus Energy. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Ms. Sherry Wendt, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Ms. Wendt.

Thank you, Operator, and welcome, everyone, to Synovus' 2022 year-end and fourth quarter results conference call. Please refer to the advisories located at the end of today's news release. These describe the forward-looking information, non-GAAP measures, and oil and gas terms referred to today. They also outline the risk factors and assumptions relevant to this discussion. Additional information is available in Synovus' annual MD&A and our most recent AIF and Form 40F. All figures are presented in Canadian dollars and before royalties, unless otherwise stated. Alex Porbet, Our president and chief executive officer will provide brief comments and then we'll take your questions. We ask that you please hold off on any detailed modeling questions and follow up on those directly with our investor relations team after the call. And please also keep to one question with a maximum of one follow-up. You can rejoin the queue for any other questions. Alex, please go ahead.

Thanks, Sharon. Good morning, everybody. Before we talk about our fourth quarter and annual results, I thought I'd take just a minute to discuss our other news that we announced this morning. After our AGM at the end of April, I will be shifting to the role of executive chair. John will become our next president and CEO. This is something that I've been working with the board on for quite some time. Ensuring a robust plan for executive succession, including developing strong internal candidates, has been a key focus of mine and the rest of the Synovus board. And I am very proud to say in my entire career, I have never worked with as capable a leadership team as I am lucky to have here at Synovus today. When I joined Synovus, the feedback we received from shareholders was that the company had historically lacked a strong succession plan. One of my very early acts as president and CEO was to bring on John, as CFO to help achieve three key priorities we'd set for Synovus. Optimize our cost structure, expand our market access, and strengthen our balance sheet. And as many of you know, when John joined the company, he and I weren't strangers. In fact, we've known each other for the better part of our careers. And I knew that John's towering strengths of discipline, accountability, work ethic, and deep knowledge of the energy business would be of huge help to me as we embarked on delivering on those priorities. The entire leadership team and all the people in this company came together to deliver on those priorities, culminating with the Husky transaction and John's move to COO. I won't say it's all been a walk in the park. The reality is that we've worked through some incredible challenges along the way. But I can say with complete honesty that John and I have never been misaligned on what we believe is best for the company. I think it's fair to say we come at problems from differing perspectives, and I think this diversity has actually made us a really successful team. Since the Husky acquisition, we've achieved many milestones together. I'll take a moment to revisit just a few. We delivered above and beyond our targeted synergies from the Husky deal. We continued to aggressively reduce debt, and we implemented and are executing on our shareholder returns frameworks. We've also evolved the asset portfolio with opportunistic A&D transactions. These have better positioned the company to maximize the heavy oil value chain, which will support further growth in cash flow and shareholder returns. But I think most importantly, we've been able to create a low-cost, resilient, integrated energy company that is profitable at all parts of the commodity cycle. John has been instrumental in these efforts and our vision for Synovus is With his breadth of experience, strategic thinking, and incredible commercial acumen, there is no better person to be the next president and CEO of this company. While I could have stayed on in the role for another year or two, Synovus is in really great shape, and I think John has earned the right to lead Synovus, and I don't think there could be a better time for this leadership transition. Thanks, John.