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Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry
January 2008

Vol. 13, No. 3 Week of January 20, 2008

Oil sands get environmental ‘F’

Gary Park

For Petroleum News

Nine of 10 Alberta oil sands mining projects got an F for their environmental performance in a joint survey by the Alberta-based Pembina Institute and World Wildlife Fund.

And seven of the operations have yet to start production.

Syncrude Canada, the world’s largest source of synthetic crude, Total E&P Canada and Canadian Natural Resources refused to participate in the study, leaving the researchers to develop their own findings.

Companies were invited to complete a survey questionnaire and were given two opportunities to comment on their performance. Only Shell Canada’s Albian Muskeg River mine “came close to a passing grade” with a 56 percent grade. At the bottom end were Syncrude and the planned Synenco Northern Lights project at 18 percent each.

The average score was 33 percent, pointing to substantial room for improvement, the report said.

Mines were ranked on 20 environmental indicators in five categories: environmental management, land impacts, air pollution, water use and management of greenhouse gases.

Pembina senior policy analyst Dan Woynillowicz said there is a “growing concern” in Canada and internationally about the environmental impact of oil sands mining, despite which the researchers “found that oil sands companies are making weak efforts to manage” those aspects of their operations.

WWF spokesman Rob Powell said the poor performance “reflects badly on the oil sands mining companies, which include the largest and most profitable major oil companies in the world. These companies have both the expertise and the resources to do much better.”

He said governments must “establish limits to curb impacts on fresh water, the global atmosphere, wildlife and public health.”

The survey called for greater transparency from governments and industry on environmental performance, the need to implement currently available best practices and a stronger commitment to voluntary reductions in environmental impacts.

Syncrude flatly rejected the findings, arguing it is a leader in oil sands sustainability, having reclaimed almost 11,400 acres or 22 percent of the land it has disturbed.

The consortium also claimed it is industry’s most efficient user of water and has developed a long-term commitment to environmental performance covering matters such as sulfur dioxide emissions.

The study said that if all mines at full production had the same greenhouse gas emissions intensity as those proposed by Canadian Natural’s Horizon project, Alberta would avoid 6.34 million metric tons, while copying Horizon’s sulfur dioxide intensity would lower annual emission rates by 47 percent.

Applying Petro-Canada’s emission rates for volatile organic compound emissions would cut annual rates by 47 percent and adopting Shell Canada’s nitrous oxide levels proposed for its Jackpine mine would slash industry-wide emission rates by 80 percent.

In addition, using the dry tailing technologies proposed for Synenco’s Northern Lights project and Total’s Joslyn mine would completely eliminate the environmental hazards of mature mine tailings at the end of a mine’s life, while the water intensity proposed by Petro-Canada could reduce annual water consumption by 60 percent.

Meanwhile, the Natural Resources Defense Council in the United States has rated the oil sands’ final product as “dirty fuel” and urged 15 airlines in North America to reduce their dependence on the fuel through conservation methods and to tighten their fuel efficiency.






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