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Oil, gas industry is making environmental progress
News Articles | Edmonton Journal | Dave Collyer | August 11, 2010
Read the full article on the originating site
The Canadian oil and gas industry understands performance plus communication determines the reputation of any venture, including Canada’s oilsands.
Global energy demand is increasing rapidly, driven by population growth and expectations of higher living standards.
The Canadian oil and gas industry is uniquely positioned to help meet this growth in demand and in doing so, is focused on the three “E’s” — energy security and reliability, economic growth and environmental performance.
Canada is blessed with abundant energy reserves. Developing our reserves makes the oil and gas sector a key economic driver. And because all forms of development impact the environment, industry’s role is to reduce its environmental footprint to the extent reasonable and practical within a responsible regulatory framework.
We understand the oilsands industry does not always meet the expectations of our stakeholders and we must continue to improve our environmental performance.
That said, there are many examples of significant progress to date, among them, reductions in greenhouse gas emissions per barrel of oil produced, increases in the use of recycled or non-potable water and reduced surface disturbances.
These improvements are the combined result of industry initiatives and government regulatory requirements. There are also many examples of new and emerging technological innovations that will continue to improve environmental performance.
In addition to focusing on environmental performance improvement, we must continue to improve our engagement and communication with customers and the Canadian public.
Performance-based communications from the men and women building and running technical and environmental programs at oilsands facilities have a valid and important role to play in the ongoing dialogue, informing opinions and choices.
Unfortunately, we also understand responsible environmental performance and objective communications won’t satisfy the activists who oppose oilsands development.
They have a different agenda.
The activist agenda is to hold out the potential for a radical green energy makeover.
While this may seem to be an easy and attractive answer, it is both naive and misleading.
Renewable energy cannot begin to provide safe, secure, reliable energy on the scale required to meet global energy demand. It will play an increasingly important role, certainly, but hydrocarbons will provide the majority of the world’s energy for many years to come.
Unconventional hydrocarbon resources such as oilsands will be an increasingly important part of the global energy supply.
The activist agenda is to sensationalize and misrepresent oilsands environmental performance, framing oilsands as “dirty oil” and advocating no further development.
Here’s one example of how facts are twisted to serve the off-oil agenda.
A recent Corporate Ethics International attack on Alberta tourism characterized the oilsands industry as “destroying an area twice the size of England.” When challenged, they modified this to “destroying an area the size of England.”
Is it true the entire Alberta oilsands cover an area about the size of England? Yes.
Is it true the oilsands industry is “destroying” or is likely to develop an area the size of England? Nothing could be further from the truth.
It’s disappointing to see activists deride industry stories about environmental innovations and progress as “glitzy,” while their aerial stunts and multi-million-dollar campaign, including advertisements in Variety Magazine comparing oilsands to the movie Avatar, are presented as credible and creative.
The activist agenda is to focus on just one of the three “E’s” — environmental performance.
The reality is we need balanced solutions — responsibly developing Alberta’s valuable resources within a reasonable regulatory framework that recognizes economic benefits and the need for practical environmental protection.
It does not mean stopping or impeding oilsands development through prohibitive environmental or fiscal policies that are based on unsound science and fail to consider the competitive global context within which the oil and gas industry operates in Canada.
In a recent Journal article, the Pembina Institute says it’s time, “to start a dialogue about ways to lessen the environmental impacts of oilsands development” and “a war of words won’t solve the problem.”
We couldn’t agree more.
That’s why the Canadian oil and gas industry is seeking and finding solutions leading to improvements in environmental performance.
That’s why we are engaged in a constructive and balanced dialogue about responsible oilsands development with many solutions-oriented people.
We know how to do this work — the industry has a long track record of doing so in many areas, sour gas development in Alberta being one very good example.
That’s why we are engaged in processes such as the Alberta Government’s Lower Athabasca Regional Plan, seeking constructive and balanced solutions to ensure responsible development of Alberta’s oilsands resources.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect environmental lobby groups to recognize industry’s ongoing focus on performance improvement and constructively engage in discussions about solutions, while continuing their challenge to industry to raise the performance bar.
But it appears much of the environmental community, in Alberta and internationally, has self-selected to disengage from this constructive dialogue.
Instead, they have adopted a strident anti-hydrocarbon position.
Perhaps they view this approach as their best, or only, means to effect the changes they appear to be seeking.
From our perspective their approach is unrealistic and contrary to the broad interests of Canadians.
Canadians deserve practical, realistic solutions to meeting their energy, environmental and economic needs.
The Canadian oil and gas industry is focusing its efforts on developing solutions that contribute to meeting global energy needs in a responsible way and on communicating objectively and transparently with Canadians.
We encourage others to join us.
Dave Collyer is president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. CAPP represents companies that produce about 90 per cent of Canada’s natural gas and crude oil.
