Biodiversity

Biodiversity refers to the variety of life on earth, including different animals and plants and their ecosystems. Our company operates in a variety of ecosystems, some with sensitive characteristics. Our long-term business success in these areas depends on our ability to understand and manage environmental issues, including biodiversity.

Our approach

Our Upstream exploration and production activities in particular can affect different wildlife areas, including foothills, prairie ecosystems, northern peat lands and Arctic areas. Careful consideration of biodiversity is an important part of our ongoing operations and project planning in these areas.

Our actions include:

• monitoring wildlife
• considering biodiversity when designing new projects
• funding wildlife studies
• using low-impact technologies
• changing operating practices
• sponsoring community programs and projects

Performance at a glance

What we are doing

Monitoring wildlife

We have developed wildlife management plans for operating areas in our Upstream business. The plans identify species of interest or at risk near our operations. We encourage staff to communicate sightings of these species to environment professionals in order to track and manage the impact on wildlife and their habitat.

At our Cold Lake operation, for example, we encourage field operators to use observation cards and a winter tracking system to record the movement of wildlife along above-ground pipelines on our operating lease. This information is used to enhance design standards for future pipeline construction. The lease area also provides forested habitat that is attractive to bats, and for several years, employees have maintained bat nesting boxes throughout the area.

Planning for biodiversity when designing new projects

We have carried out intensive environmental surveys, including traditional land use studies, to ensure we understand biodiversity issues affecting the Kearl project. These studies have examined the project’s potential impact on wildlife, aquatic ecosystems and vegetation.

Our project will cause some impacts to the local Muskeg River watershed. When our mining operation starts, streams, small bodies of water and the upper reaches of the river will be diverted from time to time, affecting fish and fish habitat in the area. In 2009, we began construction of our first compensation lake. When complete, these lakes will replace by double the fish habitat lost due to construction and mining activities. We also built a free-span bridge over the Muskeg River that avoided any disturbance of the aquatic habitat.

We are involving stakeholders in our reclamation planning to assess different options to develop the project in an environmentally responsible way. Through consultation with Aboriginal elders and the sharing of traditional land use knowledge, we have learned that Kearl Lake, a lake on the project lease, is too shallow to allow fish to survive over the winter. We have revised reclamation plans to include three smaller yet deeper lakes, instead of one large lake, to improve water flow and oxygen levels, which are essential to fish habitat and will allow fish to overwinter. We have also revised the design to include the planting of indigenous tree and shrub species along the shorelines. 

Funding wildlife studies

We sponsor studies of wildlife and ecosystems in areas where we operate. By collaborating with academic groups and government agencies, our goal is to contribute to baseline environmental knowledge and collect valuable information we can use in managing the impacts of our business.

In the summer and fall of 2009, Imperial collaborated with ArcticNet, a network within the Networks of Centres of Excellence of Canada, onboard the icebreaker CCGS Amundsen, to study the environment in our Ajurak exploration licence area in the Beaufort Sea. This work included sending a remotely operated vehicle equipped with underwater cameras to investigate animals that may be living near the unusual seafloor environment of a seabed expulsions feature. Information was also collected on the distribution of polar bears that used the ice-covered Ajurak exploration licence area last summer.

Imperial also worked with Fisheries and Oceans Canada to understand bowhead and beluga whale distribution in the Beaufort Sea. In addition, Imperial funded and collaborated with Cornell University on leading research to learn more about whale activity in and around our Ajurak exploration licence area in the Beaufort Sea. Buoys equipped with sensitive microphones were deployed to track bowhead whale calls and movement. This detailed information will be used to develop any future projects responsibly while minimizing impacts to these important animals.

Using low-impact technologies

We are using low-impact technologies to minimize our footprint in environmentally sensitive areas. When drilling gas wells in prairie ecosystems in southern Alberta, we employ self-leveling rigs, which avoid the need to clear a level surface. Another innovative system is being used to “plough in” new pipelines (a bulldozer with a special attachment creates the trench, lays the pipe, and covers it with soil in one sequence). In the Horn River Basin of northern British Columbia, we are creating narrow and meandering seismic cutlines to reduce the impact of our exploration activity to vegetation and wildlife.

Changing operating practices

Over the last several years, in response to community concerns, we have modified night-time lighting at our Cold Lake operation, turning off lights at virtually all of our field pads. By minimizing night time lighting in the area, we also expect to reduce impacts on local wildlife. Studies have shown that night time lighting from industrial facilities can negatively affect migration patterns and reproduction cycles of wildlife, and increase the exposure of some species to predators.

Sponsoring community programs and projects

We have a long tradition of sponsoring important environmental conservation programs in Canada. Since the 1960s, we have provided funding to support a number of important organizations, including Canadian Wildlife Federation, and the Nature Conservancy of Canada. Building on this past, we continue to sponsor community programs and projects that increase environmental awareness among Canadians and help to conserve and protect environmentally sensitive areas.

Since 2005, for example, Imperial Oil Resources and Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) have been collaborating on a wetland restoration trial program at Cold Lake.  It is our intent to strengthen this relationship with a comprehensive project focused on future planning.  Through a four-year partnership we entered into with DUC in early 2010, we plan to work together to better understand wetland features within the operational area and apply knowledge gained in planning future development to minimize wetland disturbance, identify effective mitigation measures and, ultimately, reclaim the land.  The Beaver River watershed land and water inventory, which is currently underway and includes enhanced wetland and earth encompassing classifications involving 1.7 million acres, will provide information to support this project. We are committing $400,000 to the Cold Lake Partnership Project.

We have also entered into another similar four-year partnership with DUC to secure much-needed inventory and mapping products required for evaluating and implementing appropriate land use practices in and around our Horn River project area.  The Fort Nelson Partnership Project, to which Imperial is committing more than $300,000, will involve mapping the wetlands, and creating an inventory of waterfowl and their habitats in over 11 million acres of the Taiga Ecozone in British Columbia. This work will be used to evaluate and create ecologically based land-use practices while continuing to develop the resource in an economically sound way.