Environmental grades vary for oilsands mining projects
EDMONTON — A report says the Alberta government isn’t doing enough to ensure underground oilsands miners use the most environmentally friendly practices.
“Industry and government aren’t doing everything they can to mitigate environmental impact,” said Simon Dyer, one of the authors of the study released Wednesday by the Pembina Institute. “If we can do a better job, I think that’s going to benefit the industry and Canada’s reputation.”
The environmental think-tank is the first to examine projects that recover bitumen through deep underground wells. It found a wide range of environmental performance between different companies.
The study also suggests in-situ sites aren’t necessarily cleaner than large open-pit mines usually associated with the oilsands. In-situ projects, on average, emit more than twice as much carbon dioxide as open-pit mines. They also release more acid-rain-causing gases such as sulphur and nitrous dioxides.
And when the impact of the natural gas they use is considered, in-situ projects disturb almost as much land.
“Some in government and industry have been trying to downplay the impact of in situ, framing it as a low-impact form of oilsands development,” said Dyer. “What our report shows is that there are very significant cumulative impacts.”
The institute reviewed 2007 data to examine nine different in-situ projects in both commercial production and pilot stages, and used 17 different environmental criteria.
It asked if a project’s environmental management was accredited by a third party. It asked for emissions per barrel of oil produced. It asked how much water was used per barrel and whether the company was a member of any environmental monitoring organizations.
The responses were compiled and graded. The results varied from 25 per cent for Canadian Natural Resources Ltd’s Primrose/Wolf Lake project to 60 per cent for Suncor’s Firebag project. The average grade was 44 per cent.
The report concludes that if all companies were obliged to adopt best practices already used by some, they could save as much water as is used by about 100,000 Canadians. Greenhouse gases would be reduced by the equivalent of taking 750,000 cars off the road.
The report’s argument for tougher regulations comes as the Alberta government considers the opposite.
“We don’t need more regulations,” Energy Minister Ron Liepert said in Calgary on Wednesday. “We have plenty of regulations in place to ensure that environmentally we are protecting Albertans, but in many cases, it’s simply taking too long. We’ll deal with that.”
Liepert said in-situ developments shouldn’t even be considered oilsands.
“Really, in-situ is not oilsands,” he said. “And yet it gets lumped in with the bad press of the oilsands. I think sometimes we are part of our own problem in that we need to do a better job of selling what we have.”
The report doesn’t include recent innovations such as low-impact seismic lines, which reduce forest fragmentation, said Travis Davies, spokesman for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. Industry is introducing those changes on its own, without being forced to, he pointed out.
“It does make this industry more competitive to be seen to be pushing the bar on environmental stewardship.”
But the report does generally reinforce industry’s emphasis on addressing environmental concerns through new technology, he said.
Alberta Environment spokeswoman Jessica Potter said the department is examining the report and its recommendations.
“We do recognize that all development has impacts,” she said. “We agree that there is room for improvement.”
Dyer said working on the report, which took about a year, revealed how difficult it is to get environmental information on the oilsands. The companies were given a chance to participate in data collection and respond to the findings.
Only three — Husky, Cenovus and Shell — agreed to provide the data requested. The rest had to be cobbled together from government agencies and teased out of stacks of regulatory filings.
“It’s hard to get to and it’s not in a single location,” Dyer said. “These are reasonable questions and some pretty basic parameters of environmental performance.”
Potter said the government is improving access to oilsands information.
Open-pit mining is still the largest part of oilsands development, but in-situ recovery is growing and represents the industry’s future. Most of Alberta’s oilsands are too deep for open pits and will have to be exploited by underground mining.
An area the size of Scotland has already been leased for in-situ projects.
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