So Husky produces 290,000 bbl per day
Cenovus produces about 460,000 bbl per day
Husky uses 5500 employees
Cenovus uses 2300 employees.
Seems that Husky is having a harder time getting oil out of the ground even with over twice as many people and about half of the production. Why was Husky so attractive to take over by Cenovus, other than the new Cenovus CFO brought over from Husky two years ago was homesick?
Cenovus has layed off thousands in the last few years. So those numbers may be skewed,
The entire consulting business for thousands and thousands of people (now unemployed) depended on hiring from Cenovus, and to a lesser degree Ovintiv Inc (whoever came up with that name needs help) . Both companies sold off their valuable freehold and royalty lands to other companies like Prairie Sky bleeding employees.
Husky was very badly managed, just look at their safety and spill record over the last 5 years. They instituted useless reporting and oversight things like HOIMS and silly HR things like PPRP, which failed miserably but kept thousands of employees busy making useless powerpoint presentations and seminars and internal presentations.
Cenovus realized this unnecessary overhead at the time of the merger. Cenovus only really is interested in the hard assets like the downstream pipelines and refineries that Husky had.
Not sure if this is an entirely fair comparison. Husky was vertically integrated with midstream, downstream and even retail. It also had offshore components. All of these require way more people to operate. You need A LOT more operations and safety for a refinery than for a SAGD plant.
Cenovus was, I understand it, mostly upstream, so needed less people as was lower risk.