OK, the Canadian oil sands story is "out." We all know about the potential of essentially steam-cleaning bitumen-laden sand, dirt, and clay into usable oil. And most of us probably know that Canada (along with Venezuela) is basically the new Saudi Arabia for this black gold. But just because the story is out, don't assume that Suncor (NYSE:SU) is necessarily out of gas.

Production rebounded strongly this quarter, lifting revenue and earnings nicely. Average daily production jumped about 70%, and the company saw nearly 42% higher price realizations. That, in turn, ultimately led to revenue growth of 86%. Given that these process-oriented business are heavily weighted toward volume, it was no great shock to see that the higher revenue led to meaningfully better earnings (with or without the inclusion of an insurance settlement).

Turning back to the cost and price picture for a moment, there are a couple of worthwhile data points. First, lower sales of high-value products, and a widening spread between heavy and light crude, impaired pricing. While I'm not saying that differential should be ignored, unless somebody starts finding huge new reserves of light oil, I'm not terribly worried. On the cost side, cash costs per barrel dropped about 27%, as higher production helped leverage the infrastructure better.

There are still plenty of moving parts to consider here. The company is aggressively adding capacity, which will continue to suck up free cash flow, but it's the only way to realize value from the reserves. It's also true that this process is somewhat complex and interdependent, so there's a real risk of accidents. Last but not least, I'm interested to see whether the company can do more on the third-party upgrading side, like the deal Suncor struck with Petro-Canada (NYSE:PCZ).

Valuation is pretty close to educated guesswork at this point, but so be it. If you believe in long-term oil prices above $40 or so, you can probably see some value in Suncor, even at these levels. Of course, the same could be true for others like Canadian NaturalResources (NYSE:CNQ), Occidental (NYSE:OXY), and Apache (NYSE:APA) as well.

I'm not personally looking to add Suncor to my holdings, but that's mostly because I have as much energy exposure as I want. Another dip like we saw earlier in the year, though, might have me making a little extra room for this one.

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Fool contributor Stephen Simpson has no financial interest in any stocks mentioned (that means he's neither long nor short the shares).