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.

Horn River: We are using technology and best practices to minimize our land impacts, as we conduct seismic studies and drill exploration wells in the Horn River Basin. We create narrow and meandering cutlines to reduce line of sight for predators and mulch seismic lines to promote rapid re-vegetation. 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. 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.

Kearl: Our plans for Kearl include a commitment to progressive land reclamation where land used early in the project will be reclaimed as mining is expanded to new areas. When finished, the land will be reclaimed to a boreal forest area that meets government regulations as well as the needs of local stakeholders, aquatic and wildlife habitat.

In developing our reclamation plans for Kearl, we have worked closely with neighbouring oil sands operators to make sure that drainage, reclamation and closure plans are integrated. We also maintain a dialogue with localstakeholders 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 2010, we continued construction of the plant site. Earth walls were completed for the ore preparation plant, and construction of facilities was underway. We are stripping and storing soils for future reclamation, and at year end had salvaged more than 10 million cubic metres of soil.

We also completed construction of the first of three compensation lakes to replace fish habitat displaced by development. In 2010, we installed a variety of habitat features, including boulders and trees, to provide feeding areas and cover for fish. The lake is now being filled, and later in 2011 we will plant indigenous tree and shrubs along the shorelines.

At Kearl, the first shrub planting began on site in August 2010. The green alder plants, which are indigenous to the area, were grown in a northern Alberta greenhouse from seeds harvested in the Athabasca oil sands area.

Minimizing our footprint at Cold Lake
We have developed an innovative approach to further reduce the surface footprint at our Cold Lake operation.

Our "megapad" approach for Cold Lake and the Nabiye expansion allows us to increase the number of wells drilled from a single surface location, enabling more efficient resource recovery and reduced development costs. Surface use requirements for expansion projects at Cold Lake will be reduced by more than 40 percent with this new approach.

We have an ongoing program to reclaim land impacted by the Cold Lake operation. So far, more than 677 hectares of this land has been permanently reclaimed. Since 1998, we have planted nearly 1 million trees and shrubs on the site. The predominant species planted are white spruce, aspen, Jack pine, birch, willow and alder. All of these species are indigenous to the area.

Restoring environmentally sensitive ecosystems
Reclamation plans at our Cold Lake operation are designed to address local environmental ecosystems such as wetlands. Since 2008, Imperial and Ducks Unlimited Canada have 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 re-vegetation.

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.

Here are some highlights of our activities in 2010:

• We began remediation of a 10.8-hectare parcel of land on a former Esso refinery site in Montreal. About half of the soil to be remediated was excavated and stockpiled in 2010. Treatment of the stockpiled soil is scheduled to start in 2011 and be returned to the site as backfill.
• We completed a long-term risk management plan for a property in southeast Calgary, the site of an Imperial refinery that operated from the 1920s to the 1970s. The plan, which includes groundwater control, monitoring and treatment, was submitted to the Alberta government for review and approval.
• We met with residents in the town of Calmar, Alberta to discuss our plans to permanently seal a natural gas well previously operated by Texaco until the 1950s. After the well was discovered to be leaking small amounts of gas in 2008, we temporarily sealed the well. In 2010, we carried out individual meetings and hosted two community townhall meetings to outline our plans for permanently sealing the well by 2011.
• We completed remediation of a former gas plant site near Battle Lake, Alberta, removing contaminated soil and planting 10,000 cuttings to encourage natural re-vegetation on the site.
• We managed 2,500 non-operating sites, including former well sites, gas plants, refineries and retail service stations. About $187 million was spent on assessment, risk management, remediation and reclamation activities. A total of 60 properties were sold or returned to leaseholders, enabling land to be returned to productive use.

Treating impacted soils
We invest in the development of innovative technologies to advance land reclamation.

Scientists at our Calgary research centre are exploring different methods to remediate salt-affected soils on former industrial sites. In recent years, they have studied the use of salt-tolerant crops such as barley. In 2010, they expanded this effort by investigating the use of a soil amendment which can adjust soil chemistry on salt-affected sites so as to promote successful re-vegetation.

Since 2009, we have also piloted a bioremediation project at the Cynthia oil field near Drayton Valley, Alberta. The facility is being used to collect and bioremediate soil from local non-operating oil fields, allowing us to save operating costs and restore soil safely to the land. Since the facility began operation in 2008, more than 40,000 tonnes of soil from four non-operating well sites have been successfully treated, and work is continuing to complete soil treatment from an additional 17 sites. Based on this success, we are extending this approach to other sites in our business. In 2010, we began construction of a bioremediation unit north of Winnipeg to treat soils from past service station sites and a former fertilizer distribution centre in the area.

Using traditional knowledge 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.

As part of project planning for the Ajurak-Pokak joint venture, we use the wealth of traditional knowledge that has been accumulated by the Inuvialuit and Gwich’in who have lived in the region for thousands of years. A systematic traditional knowledge study has recently been completed in support of the Ajurak-Pokak joint venture. In 2010, interviews were conducted with elders and hunters in proximity of the proposed exploration area, and survey results were shared with community members. The joint venture plans to use this information, in addition to other baseline data, in future project planning. Collecting this information documents this important cultural resource and supports informed dialogue throughout project consultation and development.

In 2009 and 2010, we commissioned a traditional land use study of our exploration acreage in the Horn River Basin. Carried out by the Fort Nelson First Nations Lands office, the study involved interviews with elders, site visits as well as archeological assessments. Results of the study identified that a planned access road would intersect a traditional meeting place for hunters and trappers. In 2010, after meeting with elders and the Fort Nelson First Nations, we altered the proposed route to prevent disturbance of the meeting place and created a rest stop for community members to visit the site.

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 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 also fund traditional land use studies to gain a better understanding of former industrial properties. In 2009, we partnered with the Hobbema Four Nations near Wetaskiwin, Alberta, to conduct a traditional land use study of 40 inactive Imperial wells on reserve lands. We plan to use the study, which documents historic burial grounds and other traditional sites in the area, in developing reclamation plans for the well sites.