Land & biodiversity

Minimizing land disturbance to protect biodiversity

Our goal is to return impacted land to its original or equivalent state once operations are complete. This involves working closely with stakeholders and Indigenous communities, front-end design that minimizes impacts, and a proactive well abandonment and reclamation program.

When developing our projects, we strive to minimize disturbance and protect biodiversity. We have adopted several best-in-class practices, including progressive reclamation and multi-well pad design that inform our approach.

2021 performance highlights

$34MM

invested in asset
retirement activities
2020-2021

225,905

trees planted in 2021

152 hectares

of land reclaimed in 2021

60%

of reclamation and remediation portfolio in vegetation monitoring or later stage

Asset retirement and reclamation

Progressive reclamation

Through progressive reclamation, we partially reclaim disturbed areas that are no longer required for ongoing operations. By re-establishing some of the land around a well pad, we reduce the surface land disturbance, while minimizing soil erosion in that area. In addition, we assess the overall footprint in an area to identify opportunities to return land to pasture or field for agricultural purposes.

Accelerated reclamation
In recent years, we have aimed to bring sites to closure quicker to further minimize our liability. By ensuring sites are not sitting idle, we progress sites through to full reclamation faster.

We anticipate our accelerated reclamation program will reduce cycle-time from 5 - 7 years to approximately 3 - 4 years.

Industry partnerships

By collaborating with industry peers and governments, we work collectively to reduce cumulative impacts through coordination of activities and knowledge sharing.

We are an active member of several industry partnerships working to support reclamation and remediation efforts, minimize impacts to landowners, facilitate research and manage liability obligations:

Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers
Alberta’s Orphan Well Association
BC’s Orphan Site Reclamation Fund

In addition, we participate as a Technical Champion in the Petroleum Technology Alliance of Canada’s remediation and reclamation research project.

Protecting biodiversity

Protecting and promoting biodiversity near our operations is a priority. We mitigate potential impacts of our operations with careful planning, continuous monitoring and a robust asset integrity program.

Through environmental site assessments, we monitor local wildlife, plant species, and natural water crossings in our field. To ensure habitats are kept intact, we construct a series of bridges, culverts, and wildlife corridors.