Suppliers are an important part of Suncor's business success. As valued partners, they contribute to our company's commitment to sustainability in many ways.

Whether it's helping us achieve a $1 billion spending milestone with Aboriginal companies in goods and services or ensuring timely delivery of critical parts for our oil sands or refinery operations, our suppliers each play an important role in supporting our operations.

We work hard to maintain good relationships with our suppliers, treating them as partners, and in the spirit of operational excellence, welcoming their ideas for improvement or how we can work better together. Wherever possible, we support local businesses. We are also helping to develop new businesses — our investment in a three-year business incubator pilot project with the Fort McKay First Nation is a recent example.

We hold our suppliers to high standards, expecting them to manage their safety processes and environmental impact. Our supplier prequalification processes have been put in place to ensure compliance with these priorities.

Taking action

In 2007 and 2008, we experienced challenges in our supply chain. Timely payment of vendors continued to be a problem after our implementation of SAP software and new processes in 2006.

We have taken action to address these issues, implementing improvements in our processes. For example, we have set up a new team called Supplier Help — this helps suppliers to resolve payment issues in a more timely way.

Capital project deferral impact on suppliers

Our suppliers were impacted by the deferral of a number of our capital projects in 2009. We are working closely with them as we put our projects into “safe mode” pending the return of sustained energy demand and credit markets. We appreciate the support and innovation that our suppliers have demonstrated during these difficult times.

A partnership approach

We're committed to working with our suppliers. And the results of this partnership approach are beginning to show. In February 2009, the Steepbank Extraction Supply Chain team was nominated for a President's Operational Excellence Award for driving significant reductions in waste.

We're also looking forward. We have embarked on a Supply Chain Optimization program, which is expected to drive a new model for our supplier relationships. A process-driven initiative, one of its key external outcomes will be to make it easier for our suppliers to do business with us.