Former Suncor Energy CEO Rick George died Tuesday at age 67. George served as CEO of Suncor from 1991 until his retirement in 2012 and helped build both the company and Canada’s oil sands into energy powerhouses. 

He joined BNN for an in-depth interview in May, and shared his thoughts on everything from the future of the global oil market, to why investors have snubbed Canada’s energy sector lately -- and what the country needs to do to restore confidence in the investment community.

Here’s some of what he told us:

ON THE FUTURE OF THE OIL MARKET

“It’s been a difficult three years for the industry and it’s certainly been felt in Calgary. But I’m kind of an optimist that we are through the worst of this. Not that we are going to see a real bull market in oil but I think we are going to see an improving market over the next couple of years … Do I see US$100 crude oil anytime soon? No, but the fact (the U.S) is consuming 95-million barrels per day and we haven’t invested in the long term to replace those kinds of reserves means that sooner or later oil prices will rise.”

ON THE NEED FOR CANADA TO DIVERSIFY ITS ENERGY CUSTOMER BASE

“The most important thing for Canadians is we need to get access for more oil to the coast. As long as we have our major customer, IE the U.S., as our single largest customer – and such a dominant customer – we are always going to be subject to them setting the price as opposed to us getting the world price. That affects every Canadian, every Canadian’s standard of living and obviously every Canadian province’s tax and balance of payments.”

ON THE FUTURE OF CANADA’S NATURAL GAS SECTOR

“I am not overly hopeful on LNG. I think we missed the market. Again, we delay things in this country so long between when we start talking about doing a project and when they ultimately get completed, I think we miss the market. The market for international gas has been dropping. There are a lot of other supplies for natural gas around the world and you have to be competitive. To be honest with you, in that realm, we haven’t helped ourselves.”

ON WHETHER CANADA’S ENERGY SECTOR IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS

“I know these federal and provincial ministers talk a good game but what have we actually approved? I know the Keystone expansion has been approved, but now we are worried about other issues and protests and court obligations. There is a lot of room between the rhetoric we hear politically and reality. And the reality is lots of projects have been blocked and we need to get a lot of these projects unblocked and underway.”

ON THE NEED FOR MORE OIL SANDS CONSOLIDATION

“The big oil sands players’ consolidation has started. I’m not sure it’s over, but it’s certainly started. We’ve not seen it on the small oil sands players’ side; that needs to happen. And I think there also needs to be a consolidation of E&P players in Canada as well. You don’t need 72 exploration and production companies for this size of basin. So all those efficiencies are coming. I’m actually quite encouraged by the consolidation of big oil sands players in the sense that a lot of that technology was driven by Canadian companies and so a lot of these foreign companies moving out is probably going to consolidate the industry in a technological sense as well and I think you can make even better advances on technology.”

ON WHY INVESTORS ARE SNUBBING CANADA’S ENERGY SECTOR

“From a Canadian viewpoint, we have not helped ourselves with uncertainty around carbon pricing, uncertainties around polices and around pipelines, uncertainties around getting infrastructure approved -- so we have not made ourselves an attractive place to invest. I don’t actually fault investment managers for looking out on a global basis – on a very wide basis – and saying, ‘Where do I want to stick my money for the next six months, 24 months?” … We have got to make ourselves – Canada – more competitive and more attractive as a place to invest.”

ON ENERGY INVESTING

“I like really well-run companies with good balance sheets. Today, with these prices, if you can generate positive cash flow and grow the company using your own cash flow rather than debt those are the kinds of companies you should look for – big or small.”