Environnmental Commitment

We Understand our Operations have an effect on the Environment

We operate in an industry that affects the land, air, and water. Extracting fossil fuels requires the use of large machinery and the building of infrastructure in previously undeveloped areas, and often disturbs wildlife and vegetation. Our processes release emissions such as greenhouse gases and sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere. We use water and other resources during operations.

Since ARC is made up of people who have a vested interest in keeping our environment safe and healthy for future generations, we strive to minimize environmental impacts during our operations to the extent reasonably and economically feasible. Once we are finished working in an area, we reduce our environmental footprint through reclamation activities. Our commitment to being a leader in our industry means proactively meeting or exceeding regulations to protect the environment and working with a cooperative spirit with public agencies in this regard.

Reclamation
Sustainable environmental practices are very much front and center in the news. Companies are encouraged by various advocacy and investor groups to take action. We are one of the few oil and gas operators who have a cash funded abandonment and reclamation fund. ARC actually has two reclamation funds – an unrestricted fund that is used for most of ARC’s reclamation projects and a restricted fund that is specifically targeted for reclamation activities in our Redwater field in Alberta. This field is important to us as it will form a basis for future greenhouse gas management projects, however, when ARC purchased Redwater, we assumed substantial reclamation obligations. Each quarter we withhold a portion of cash flow and fund ARC’s two reclamation funds. Annual contributions into the fund have averaged $12 million. Our reclamation funds ensure that future stakeholders are not left carrying the entire financial burden of reclamation.

Carbon Capture and Storage
An area of interest to ARC is carbon dioxide (CO2) injection into mature reservoirs. This process has been around for over 30 years and is used as a means to recover additional resources. As an added benefit, this process allows CO2 that would normally be emitted into the atmosphere to be safely sequestered below the ground. With Redwater, ARC has one of Canada’s largest fields that may be suitable for sequestering unwanted CO2 from large emitters such as upgraders and refineries. Additionally, this practice helps to extract incremental oil from mature fields, making more efficient use of already developed fields. It will be a few more years before we have commercially viable CO2 projects in Alberta. It will take legislation, and cooperation between emitters and end-users of CO2 before the required infrastructure is in place for larger scale projects. We are currently conducting a CO2 enhanced oil recovery pilot project at Redwater to determine the commercial viability of a full scale CO2 injection project.

Disclosure
Through our participation in public reporting initiatives such as the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producer’s Stewardship Initiative, the Canadian GHG Challenge Registry, and the Carbon Disclosure Project, we gain access to information on best practices by others and can make continual improvements to our programs. A leading ethical fund company issued a report in 2007 where it ranked all energy companies on their environmental disclosure. ARC was the only trust that made it in the top ten rankings, amongst some of the leading energy companies in Canada. In 2007, ARC was included in the Jantzi Social Index in recognition for our commitment to the environment, community involvement, employee relations, human rights and corporate governance.

To learn more about ARC's Environmental Commitment click here to view ARC's Corporate Responsibility Report (PDF)