Spill prevention

Spills can result from unplanned releases of crude oil or other hydrocarbon products from facilities where petroleum products are produced, transported, stored or marketed. These can affect land and water and, ultimately, the community's goodwill and support of our operations.

Our approach

Our goal is to have no spills to land or water, with a focus on driving spills with environmental consequence to zero. We are pursuing this in a number of ways, through:

• carrying out inspection and surveillance programs
• upgrading key equipment
• increasing spill awareness through training
• learning from past incidents

Performance at a glance

What are we doing

Focus on operations integrity reduces spills
We rely on our Facilities Integrity Management System (FIMS) to identify equipment maintenance and repairs in a timely manner. By proactively replacing piping or repairing vessels, we can prevent spills and other environmental incidents. Since the inception of FIMS in 2007, we have invested more than $46 million to replace piping in Upstream operations, helping to improve facility reliability while significantly reducing incidents. In 2010, the Upstream business achieved zero hazard loss incidents – its best-ever performance.

Using behaviour-based programs
Building upon a successful safety initiative, we have developed behaviour-based programs to promote spill prevention among workers. These programs heighten awareness of our expectations and focus attention on addressing on-the-job behaviours that can lead to spills. In 2010, the Operator Care program, which promotes correct operating procedures, was introduced to our Upstream operations. We also distributed a series of environmental alerts to field operators designed to increase awareness of recent incidents and share lessons from investigations across the Upstream business.

Spill prevention continues to be a key focus of two major environmental leadership training initiatives that have involved more than 800 managers, supervisors and leaders throughout our organization since 2005. About 180 managers, supervisors and leaders received the training in 2010.

Manufacturing sites continued to drive the proactive prevention of environmental incidents through zero-systemic incident processes, which involve identification and mitigation of scenarios that could lead to abnormal releases to the environment.

Strengthening contractor performance
Another priority is increasing spill prevention awareness and accountability among contractors who work for Imperial. In 2010, we implemented a contractor stewardship program across our Upstream operations. The program requires contractors to track and steward environmental incidents, with a focus on spills. We also rolled out an enhanced orientation package for contractors. All contractors who work on our sites are required to complete this classroom training, which covers spill prevention as one of its focus areas.

Upgrading key equipment
We take proactive measures to replace equipment in a timely and safe manner before leaks can occur. In 2010, our efforts were focused on the same key areas as in 2009:

• replacing or reconfiguring piping to reduce the risk of spills at the Cold Lake operation. This was carried out after completing a comprehensive two-year assessment of piping inside plants and between plant vessels
• continuing a program to upgrade underground petroleum storage tank and line systems at retail service stations to further reduce the risk of spills. In 2010, we replaced underground storage tanks at three service stations
• furthering a multi-year program at our Sarnia site to install water hold-and-treat systems to prevent releases to the St. Clair River
• continuing our emphasis on upgrading our piping and tankage at our refineries
• utilizing more rigorous risk assessments and evaluation of the integrity of our equipment

Carrying out pipeline inspection and surveillance programs

We employ a rigorous management program to maintain pipeline protection and integrity throughout our owned and operated pipelines in Canada. Advanced analysis methods are used to predict pipeline corrosion rates, and prevention programs are employed to mitigate potential corrosion. In addition, state-of-the-art in-line inspection technologies and ground and aerial surveillance are used to monitor pipeline integrity. We also have an ongoing program to excavate sections of pipe for inspection and maintenance. The data obtained from our in-line inspections is used to proactively repair sections of pipe before a failure occurs. In 2010, we completed 188 digs in our networks to inspect and maintain pipe.