Syncrude chairman in Vancouver defends tarsands
Chairman says carbon emissions have been reduced
By Damian Inwood,
The Province
September 10, 2010
Syncrude Canada chairman Marcel Coutu stood before a business-friendly Vancouver lunch crowd and fired a salvo in defence of the Alberta tarsands giant's environmental record.
"A lot of you may not have heard about us until the last five years." Coutu told a Vancouver Board of Trade meeting Thursday. "There's been a lot said in the press, a lot of it not very flattering, and that's the reason why we've had to take up the communication task of countering some of those exaggerations."
Coutu, who also is president and CEO of Canadian Oil Sands Ltd., took pains to point to the environmental improvements tarsands companies have made over recent years.
"We've got some challenges and there's no question about that," he admitted. "At the same time, it's not just about the environment but it's also about economy and energy security."
Coutu said that the tarsands are made up of 1.7 trillion barrels of bitumen "the consistency of peanut butter," with 170 billion barrels of it that are recoverable.
He said there'll be a need for fossil fuels for decades to come and 97 per cent of the oil in Canada is "trapped in the oilsands."
"I disagree with some of the simplistic approaches that are proposed in the media, from time to time, when you face this kind of reality," he added.
"I sincerely share the concerns of Canadians with respect to the environment when it comes to developing the oilsands. I'm not going to stand here and tell you we've achieved everything and we may not perfect it by the time the resource is depleted."
He said Syncrude has "reclaimed" 22 per cent of the land "disturbed" by tarsands development.
"It's not that we don't want to reclaim the other 78 per cent, but we still need to run the operation, so there will always be a certain amount that is open," he said.
He said that since 1990, the amount of greenhouse gases used to make a barrel of oil has decreased by 39 per cent and there's been an overall reduction of 17 million tonnes since 2007.
Coutu said that processed water is held in tailing ponds and is not returned to the Athabasca River.
He pointed to recent headlines sparked last month by a University of Alberta report that said that pollutants found in the Athabasca River were greater near tarsands developments.
"Bitumen has been seeping into the river for time immemorial," said Coutu.
He said the tarsands industry supports continued studies whether it be by the U of A's David Schindler "who is not agreeing with the conclusions of Alberta Environment and the Regional Aquatics Monitoring Program . . . who continue to conclude there is no change in either the sediment or the water."
"I hope we can get to a conclusion where we all agree and, if there's remedial action to be taken, we will do that as well," added Coutu.
He described the tarsands as a "national treasure" and said B.C. stood to gain $45 billion in economic spinoffs and 28,000 jobs a year from it.
Coutu told reporters later he's not sure how the war of words with environmentalists will work out.
"I do sympathize with the forest industry with what they had to go through given that we're going through something similar," he said.
He said environmental lobby groups use a "PR campaign that tries to single out things that will pull on people's emotions and we are not in that kind of mode."
dinwood@theprovince.com
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