Syncrude believes our business will succeed only if we demonstrate corporate and environmental responsibility. We are committed to sustainable development, and to the understanding and remediation of the environmental impacts of our operation.

Water management

Syncrude’s ongoing water management efforts continue to generate results for everyone concerned about the use of this important natural resource. Currently, 80 per cent of Syncrude’s total water needs comes from a continuous recycle system using process water. The remaining 20 per cent is met through fresh water intake from the Athabasca River.

Recognizing the value of the Athabasca watershed to our neighbours, we continue to examine new ways to conserve, recycle and use water more efficiently. So far, our efforts have been successful. In fact, over the past 20 years, Syncrude has reduced by about 60 per cent its use of fresh water per unit of oil sands production. Today, we use about 2.3 cubic metres of fresh water per cubic metre of crude oil produced, down from five cubic metres in the early 1980s. This is about half the current industry average.

In the future Syncrude anticipates that our water use will increase along with our production of crude oil, but we are committed to staying within our license limits for water withdrawal from the Athabasca River. We will continue to seek and implement ways to reduce our use of fresh water through recycle and conservation programs, and will keep our Aboriginal neighbours updated on our progress.