“ Major oil and gas companies spent $1.6 billion in 2019 to help reduce environmental footprint, $400 million more than previous high.”
ANOTHER RECORD YEAR FOR OIL SANDS RESEARCH SPENDING TO REDUCE GREENHOUSE GASES R&D IN C NADA’S OIL & GAS INDUSTRY C anada’s oil and gas industry continues to by Deborah Jaremko
increase spending to reduce its environ- mental footprint and improve cost com- petitiveness. Major companies spent a record $1.6 billion on research and development in 2019 – or the equiv- alent of about $43 for every Canadian – accord- ing to the latest ranking by Research Infosource. That’s an increase of about $400 million compared to the previous record, which was set in 2018. “It continues to go up, and we’re not surprised because of the level of effort that these compa- nies are putting into trying to find solutions to some of the environmental issues that they’re facing, and also to lower their costs,” says Jared Dziuba, analyst with BMO Capital Markets spe- cializing in environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. “It’s positive in terms of the trend, and the progress we’ll probably see in terms of the per- formance numbers.” In the oil sands, increased R&D spending has helped producers reduce greenhouse gas emis- sions intensity, freshwater use intensity and land footprint, as well as started reductions in tailings accumulations. Oil sands GHG intensity is likely much lower than previously thought, according to a December 2020 study by researchers from the University of Calgary, Stanford University, and the University of Toronto. They found oil sands upstream emissions inten-
sity to be up to 35 per cent lower than previous studies, when they used Alberta-specific data for natural gas inputs rather than the US data that was previously modeled.
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MARCH 2021 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021
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