Thank you.
Mr. Leach obviously spends a lot of his time studying this, so his facts are quite correct. Back in the early part of this, in 2000, we did have an initiative to reduce our costs to $9.80 a barrel by 2003, and certainly our costs are at $35 a barrel. I think it's an important point that he's brought up.
If you look at the cost of producing a barrel of oil sands, it is one of the highest cost barrels in the world. Why is that relevant? It's relevant for two reasons. One is that if you look at the large costs to actually invest in the oil sands, only the big oil companies can afford to be part of the oil sands industry now, so it's Imperial, Shell, Canadian Natural Resources, BP, etc. Those companies have choices so when they look at where they're going to develop their next reserve or resource, there are places where they can actually make a higher profit and their shareholders will drive them to do that.
Suncor is in a similar position. Our CEO uses the term “profitable growth” now and that's new for the oil sands in this decade. Previously it was kind of grow, grow, grow, whereas now if we can't produce a project that meets a rate of return for our shareholders, we won't actually do it anymore.
Back to the operating costs, it's absolutely a strong initiative at Suncor to reduce them. We understand that we want to be middle of the pack in terms of operating costs. The best way for us to do that is twofold. One way is to sweat the assets and make them more reliable. I'm sure that Mr. Côté spends a lot of his waking hours making sure the equipment runs well, that it runs efficiently and effectively. The second way is in using new technology to actually reduce costs, particularly in terms of energy consumption and in terms of the human capital it takes to operate the assets. The more we can do, the more able we're going to be to reduce the costs, the more taxes and royalties that get paid, and the more opportunity there is for growth in the industry and reducing the risks that Mr. Leach spoke to.