SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD. The energy you need, the benefits you want and the responsibility you expect 2008/09 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT CONTENTS The Syncrude Backgrounder Syncrude is a leader in Canada’s oil sands industry, with a production capacity equivalent to over 15 percent of the nation’s crude oil requirements. Located north of Fort McMurray, Alberta, we are also among the top 50 companies in Canada economic for investment in research and development. Our mission is to create wealth THE ENERGY YOU NEED / 2 for all of our stakeholders from Canada’s oil sands by producing Gordon Jaremko offers his views high quality crude oil in an on why the crude oil energy produced environment environmentally and socially responsible manner. at Syncrude’s oil sands operation is needed to fuel a world that is hungry for energy Syncrude was incorporated in all its forms. THE RESPONSIBILITY YOU EXPECT / 10 in 1964 and began producing crude oil in 1978. Today we Neil McCrank observes are one of the world’s largest producers of light, sweet that Syncrude must continue to focus on dealing crude oil from the oil sands. with its environmental challenges, and make Our cumulative production is meaningful progress, if it is to earn the trust over two billion barrels. and support of Canadians. The Syncrude Project is a Joint Venture undertaking among Canadian Oil Sands Limited scorecards (36.74%), Imperial Oil Resources social SEE HOW SYNCRUDE MEASURES UP (25%), Mocal Energy Limited (5%), 21 Financial & Operations Murphy Oil Company Ltd. (5%), 26 Economic Impact Nexen Oil Sands Partnership (7.23%), Sinopec Oil Sands THE BENEFITS YOU WANT / 6 40 Human Resources Partnership (9.03%) and Suncor 46 Safety and Health Energy Oil and Gas Partnership (12%). Paul Marck comments 51 Land Reclamation on the economic, business and community benefits 61 Energy Conservation that accrue from Syncrude’s commitment to share 65 Air Quality wealth generated by our oil sands operation. 69 Water Use We’re taking concrete action towards sustainable development because we expect it of ourselves, but more, Canadians expect it of us. On the cover: Peat Pond is located in a reclaimed area, once part of our active mining operations. Letter from ENVIRONMENTAL 14 Syncrude’s ECONOMIC SUSTAINABILITY SUSTAINABILITY About This Leaders 20 48 Our 21 Operational Highlights 49 Land Reclamation Report 18 Sustainability 23 Research and Development 53 Biodiversity This report is a comprehensive Path 26 Economy 57 Tailings Management discussion about the social, economic and environmental The Syncrude 60 Climate Change 72 Operation impacts of Syncrude’s business SOCIAL 63 Air Quality activities. On the following pages Corporate SUSTAINABILITY 67 Water Management we review our progress toward 74 Governance 28 70 Waste Management sustainable oil sands development, 29 Stakeholder Relations Corporate as well as our plans going forward. 76 Information 31 Aboriginal Relations The majority of the data and 34 Community Involvement this report are subject to either Investor Syncrude’s controls, internal 77 Information 37 Our People audit, external review or 43 Safety and Health Partners in regulatory review. Some data 78 Sustainability also are subject to external benchmarking. 1 SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD. 2009 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT economic The Energy You Need 2 SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD. 2009 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT Gordon Jaremko offers his views on why the crude oil energy produced at Syncrude’s oil sands operation is needed to fuel a world that is hungry for energy in all its forms. ith one word and a single number it’s easy to tell why oil sands development will continue, including production growth planned for the 32-year-old Syncrude Canada operation: secure and $62. The word is a political green light from the United States. The figure is an economic go-ahead signal W from world energy markets to the Alberta industry. BY Despite the worst global million barrels per day or five The US relies on imports for about GORDON JAREMKO financial crisis and economic percent of consumption of half its supplies. The decision recession since the Second World 80 million barrels daily. said the new Alberta connection War, the US$62-a-barrel annual At the same time as markets “would serve the national interest, average oil price for 2009 was the signalled that oil is still worth in a time of considerable political fourth highest on record after the enough money to encourage tension in other major oil $99 of 2008, $72 of 2007 and development, Washington showed producing regions and countries, $66 of 2006. Although oil briefly willingness to pay a political price by providing additional access to slid towards $30, it recovered fast. for secure supplies. US leaders a proximate, stable, secure supply International markets realized risked unpopularity by rejecting of crude oil.” there could be no repetition of international protest campaigns gluts that caused a development that called for striking a blow drought by holding the price down against Canadian bitumen as a Most of the world’s to an average of $19.79 for the symbolic beginning of the end oil is soaked in 15-year period of 1986 through for the fossil fuel era. In the 2000. In the mid-1980s, world name of national security, the political risk or off excess production capacity was US Department of State approved limits to investor- about 14 million barrels a day or construction of the American owned enterprises nearly 25 percent of consumption leg in the new Alberta Clipper of 60 million barrels daily. At the Pipeline for oil sands exports that have predictable mid-2009 bottom of the recession, of 450,000 barrels per day. economic mandates. the global surplus peaked at four 3 THE ENERGY YOU NEED QUICK FACTS Environmental complaints percent of world oil resources on American markets from Illinois were examined and overruled. and limited entry to 10 percent in to Texas. Canada is already 175 “Concerns have been raised countries that just tolerate them the top source of US imports, BILLION BARRELS about higher-than-average levels as supporting partners for their providing two million barrels Of recognized reserves of greenhouse gas emissions national energy organizations. per day followed by one million associated with oil sands crude,” With 175 billion barrels of barrels daily each from Mexico TOP the state department acknowledged. recognized reserves, or the and Nigeria, 886,000 from SOURCE “The Administration has second-largest inventory after Saudi Arabia and 772,000 Canada provides 2 million barrels per considered these concerns and Saudi Arabia, Alberta’s oil sands from Venezuela. day to US markets considers that on balance they stand out as the top source of No Albertan calls oil sands do not outweigh the benefits the minority of global supplies development perfect and certainly 12% to the national interest.” available to private industry. not Syncrude. Industry nicknames INCREASE Most of the world’s oil is Syncrude alone taps a the 140,200-square-kilometre In projected global oil demand soaked in political risk or off limits 12-billion-barrel deposit, a Alberta bitumen belt its by 2030 to investor-owned enterprises motherlode double the total size technology frontier. For 47 years, that have predictable economic forecast for the highly touted starting a decade and a half mandates, reports the U.S. Energy Bakken Formation of flowing light before it began production, Information Administration. State- oil targeted by drilling innovations Syncrude has operated one controlled national oil companies, across North and South Dakota, of Canada’s biggest industrial serving wider agendas from Montana, and southern Manitoba, research centres, in Edmonton. financing social programs to Saskatchewan and Alberta. Staff chemist Brenda Crickmore providing subsidized fuels for The new Clipper line and a larger, has described in a nutshell the oil sands production problem that makes the science establishment With 175 billion barrels of recognized so durable: “It’s not just add water reserves, or the second-largest inventory and stir.” Indeed, as soon as a after Saudi Arabia, Alberta’s oil sands stand solution to one problem is found, another issue is sure to follow. out as the top source of the minority of That’s why Syncrude’s pursuit global supplies available to private industry. of better ways continues apace. Marathon research programs local use, have about 52 percent two-stage export pipeline project range from compressing and of global output and 88 percent called Keystone will eventually disposing of microscopic floating of reserves. Investor-owned firms put an additional 1.5 million clay particles or “fines” that make have open access to only six barrels per day from the oil sands waste tailings cleanup a notorious 4 SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD. 2009 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT headache to improving the largest All the free-world mining equipment on the planet. No stone is left unturned by a oil that can staff of about 120 that is studded be produced will with PhDs and has an annual be needed, says budget of about $50 million for devising hardware and systems the International that cut costs, increase efficiency Energy Agency. and fulfill rising safety and environmental standards. The mammoth dimensions of Energy Agency, a Paris arm of oil sands operations amplify the Organization of Economic demands on researchers. Co-operation and Development. Bright ideas, which fill the Even if the tentative agreement research centre’s library of reached on cutting carbon patents, are only the first steps emissions by the United Nations forward on the oil technology climate change summit in frontier. Laboratory breakthroughs Copenhagen late in 2009 leads must be super-sized to work to a binding treaty, the agency reliably on a large scale in the forecasts that economic and plant’s subarctic environment population growth in China, India north of Fort McMurray.