Land management

Economic development in some areas of Canada is resulting in increased pressures on land and wildlife and has led to greater competition among different stakeholders for use of the land. In our Upstream business, access to land is essential as we explore for new oil and gas resources and develop new projects to meet Canada's energy needs.

Our approach

As part of our environmental commitment, we manage our impacts to land from design stage and construction through to operation and decommissioning. Our activities include:

• reducing the footprint of new projects
• reclaiming land at existing operations
• protecting environmentally sensitive ecosystems
• reclaiming and remediating non-operating properties
• funding traditional land-use studies

In our Upstream business, we work closely with governments, communities, Aboriginal people and other stakeholders to protect wildlife and minimize impacts on land. There is also a great deal of effort focused on responsible maintenance and reclamation of former industrial sites including oil and natural gas facilities, refineries and gas stations.

Performance at a glance

What we are doing

Reducing the footprint of new projects

Our Upstream activities can occur in environmentally sensitive areas, so projects must be designed and planned to manage our environmental footprint in a responsible way. This is a priority as we carry out exploration and production activities in the Horn River Basin, the Athabasca region and at Cold Lake.

• Horn River Basin: We are developing design and operating strategies to reduce the size of the land parcels required to set up and drill wells on our lease. We plan to minimize our impacts through the use of horizontal pad drilling and an efficient project design that decreases land parcel dimensions. We expect a 25 percent reduction in the size of the land parcel required for exploration. We are also pursuing the applicability of best practices, such as the use of ice pads, to avoid soil disturbance when setting up drilling equipment in northern areas. In addition, we are working closely with other operators in the Horn River Basin Producers Group to identify common corridors for roads and pipelines and reduce our collective footprint in the region.
• Athabasca region: Our plans for Kearl include a major commitment to progressive land reclamation where land used early in the project will be reclaimed as mining is expanded to new areas. In drawing up the reclamation plans for Kearl, we have worked closely with neighbouring oil sands operations to make sure that drainage, reclamation and closure plans are integrated. We will also engage local stakeholders in reclamation planning so that reclaimed lands will provide improved wildlife capabilities and will be accessible for traditional land use by the local community.
  In 2009, we carried out ditching, drainage and clearing of the site and stockpiled surface soil, subsoil and peat-mineral soil mix, which will be used to progressively reclaim land as mined-out areas become available. We also began reclamation at the recently constructed river water intake, planting hillsides with grasses to stabilize the slope and mitigate erosion.
  As for tailings management, we plan to continually advance technologies to improve tailings reclamation. At Kearl, tailings initially will be stored in an external tailings area surrounded by an extensive network of monitoring and seepage collection wells. As mined-out areas become available, fine tailings will be recycled from the external tailings area and treated to remove water and create solid material. This material will be placed in mined-out areas and later covered with topsoil and other reclamation materials.
  In 2009, we submitted an annual tailings management plan to the provincial regulator, proposing that our new project be in full compliance with government standards for tailings management by 2018. Under the plan, we have committed to fund a research pilot on tailings management at Natural Resources Canada’s CANMET facility, a research centre in Devon, Alberta. The pilot work will be used to determine the effectiveness of different options to dewater the fine clay and asphaltene tailings stream from the paraffinic froth treatment process planned for Kearl.
• Cold Lake: We have developed a megapad approach to reduce our surface footprint at Cold Lake. This employs multiple wells drilled from a single surface location, enabling a smaller footprint, more efficient resource recovery and reduced development costs.  We are exploring further improvements that could reduce our surface disturbance by 40 percent.  In 2009, we filed these improvements in a regulatory amendment to our Nabiye expansion project.

Reclaiming land at existing operations

During oil production activities, we carry out progressive reclamation that restores land to a productive state.We have an ongoing program to reclaim land impacted by the Cold Lake operation, our largest Upstream production facility. At the end of 2009, more than 1,500 acres of disturbed land were permanently reclaimed. Over the last decade, land reclamation at the operation has included planting more than 800,000 trees and shrubs. Of this total, about 85,000 were planted in 2009. The predominant species planted are white spruce, aspen, Jack pine, birch, willow and alder ­ all indigenous to the area.

Restoring environmentally sensitive ecosystems

As part of reclamation at our Cold Lake operations, we are working to reclaim well sites constructed in peatlands.

Starting in 2008, Imperial and Ducks Unlimited Canada teamed up on a pilot project to determine how best to restore the natural functions of a wetland when reclaiming a well site in the area. The work involved removing or partially removing the clay cap and geotextile liner that are placed over a wetland area prior to construction of a new pad. Imperial removed the liner during the winter of 2008. Early indications from ongoing monitoring have shown positive results with signs of revegetation.

In 2008, Imperial joined with industry in signing a five-year reclamation research agreement with the University of Alberta, called “Removing the Well Site Footprint.” Through this project, we hope to advance further research at this pad site.

Reclaiming and remediating non-operating sites

As one of Canada’s oldest energy companies, we manage a large portfolio of industrial properties. We follow a comprehensive process to manage the asset, from decommissioning to risk assessment to remediation and reclamation and testing to meet specific standards.  In some low-risk cases, we monitor the land through periodic sampling of groundwater and soils. Once we have remediated and reclaimed land, our goal is to return it to productive use either through sale or, in the case of leased land, by returning it to landowners.

Highlights of our remediation and reclamation activities in 2009:

• We completed remediation and sale of a 22-hectare parcel of land on a former Texaco refinery site in Montreal. Bioremediation was used to treat contaminated soil on site. Since the 1980s, we have invested more than $30 million to remediate industrial properties in the area, including the former Texaco refinery.
• We received confirmation from the Alberta government that remediation is complete for a property in southeast Calgary, the site of an Imperial refinery that operated from the 1920s to the 1970s. The extensive remediation program included soil removal and replacement as well as landscape restoration. We are continuing to work with the City of Calgary on a long-term risk management program for the property in the area.
• We managed 2,600 non-operating sites, including former well sites, gas plants, refineries and retail service stations. About $125 million was spent on assessment, risk management, remediation and reclamation activities. A total of 59 properties were sold or returned to leaseholders, enabling land to be returned to productive use.

Funding traditional land use studies

For Imperial, traditional knowledge is extremely useful in developing our land reclamation plans, whether it is learning more about local fish and wildlife habitat, selecting the right vegetation, or documenting cultural sites on a property.

We have included traditional knowledge and the advice of elders and other community members into our design for the Kearl project. Over the last couple of years, we have responded to feedback by providing hunting, trapping and traditional land use access to areas of our lease that are not being actively mined and can be safely reached. We are also constructing a series of lakes that will more than double the fish habitat that has been impacted by development.

We are also working with the Hobbema Four Nations near Wetaskiwin, Alberta, to conduct a traditional land use study of inactive Imperial wells on reserve lands. We plan to use the study in developing reclamation plans for the well sites.