Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. is not betting the bank on a sustained oil price boom, even as Russia's invasion of Ukraine has sent benchmark crude soaring to triple-digit territory this week.

In an interview following the release of the company's fourth quarter results on Thursday, CNRL president Tim McKay said it's difficult to predict where oil prices will end up given current geopolitical turmoil that is spurring market fears of an interruption to global supply.

The benchmark crude price West Texas Intermediate (WTI) spiked just short of US$117 per barrel in intraday trading on Thursday, but McKay said most Canadian oil producers are watching the soaring prices with a "very prudent, longer-term perspective."

"If you go back to when the COVID pandemic started in April of 2020, we saw oil at under $18 a barrel," McKay said. "So it's a pretty volatile business, and short-term events can influence those extremes. I would suspect that with it being extreme right now, it will start to come back down once things settle down."

WTI averaged US$76.66 per barrel in 2021, an increase of 72 per cent from 2020 levels.

Calgary-based CNRL — one of the largest independent oil and natural gas producers in the world, raised its quarterly dividend by 28 per cent Thursday — as it reported surging fourth-quarter profits against the backdrop of this commodity boom.

In a conference call with analysts, CNRL management acknowledged the company is in an "enviable" position right now given current commodity prices and the health of its balance sheet. 

But chief financial officer Mark Stainthorpe said the company remains focused on keeping its dividend increases sustainable through all points in the market cycle.

"We look at that to make sure that once a dividend is declared, we're not having to take it back," Stainthorpe said. "That's why you see a steady increase, predictable increases year after year."

CNRL said it earned $2.53 billion in the quarter ended Dec. 31, up from $749 million a year earlier. The result worked out to $2.14 per diluted share, up from 63 cents per diluted share in the last three months of 2020.

CNRL said it will now pay a quarterly dividend of 75 cents per share, up from 58.75 cents per share.

In the fourth quarter, CNRL generated approximately $3 billion in free cash flow, thanks to surging oil prices.

The company said it has been able to decrease its net debt by about $1.9 billion from third-quarter levels, and by the end of 2021 had reduced its debt to under $14 billion.

That means that moving forward, the company will allocate half of its free cash flow to its balance sheet, and half toward share repurchases.

The company noted its "break-even" WTI price that will allow it to cover its base maintenance capital requirements as well as the increased dividend commitment is only in the mid-US$30s.

CNRL's revenue in the quarter totalled $9.21 billion, up from $5.02 billion a year earlier, as production in the quarter averaged 1,313,900 barrels of oil equivalent per day, up from 1,201,198 in the same quarter a year earlier.

On an adjusted basis, Canadian Natural said its profit from operations amounted to $2.21 per diluted share, up from 15 cents per diluted share a year earlier.

Analysts on average had expected an adjusted profit of $2.14 per share on $8.54 billion of revenues, according to financial markets data firm Refinitiv.

For the full-year, CNRL earned $7.66 billion on $30.1 billion of revenues, compared with a loss of $435 million on $16.9 billion in 2020.