Executive Message

As we reflect on where we’ve been and where we are going in our sustainable development journey, we know we’re making some real positive strides. It hasn’t always been easy. In the past couple of years, commodity prices have fallen sharply from the highs of 2008. And public scrutiny of our industry has risen dramatically. As you visit the pages of this website, you’ll see how hard we’re working to make our operations more sustainable—economically, environmentally and socially.

For our part, we responded to the economic conditions by increasing our focus on the prudent management of our business. We reduced our costs and began a two-year program to sell non-key assets, including our nine percent interest in the Syncrude oil sands mine.

At the same time, we continued to build our business and provide benefits to our stakeholders. In 2008 and 2009 we drilled over 700 wells, produced an average of 538,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day and laid the foundation for our 2010 announcement of a second phase of the Surmont oil sands project.

We’ve also continued to make progress on the sustainable development front. Public and employee safety, environmental stewardship, efficiency, responsibility, innovation, relationship building – all of these are hallmarks of good business, regardless of the economic times. Continued attention to these principles has contributed to ConocoPhillips’ success for more than 100 years in Canada.

Our interest in social, environmental and economic performance led us to develop internal processes to embed sustainable development in our planning and decision-making. In 2004, we began regularly reporting on our progress. We believe these efforts have increased conversation with our stakeholders and supported ongoing improvement in our performance.

This website contains many examples of our work on key sustainable development matters. For example, in the oil sands we gave forests a head start by planting 30,000 trees on 30 different sites through Faster Forests, our exciting and innovative reclamation program. In our Western Canada Gas business we assessed our water use and subsequently reduced our use of freshwater for enhanced oil recovery. We further completed over 400 greenhouse gas reduction and energy efficiency projects. These projects prevented the release of 135,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases, an amount equivalent to taking approximately 26,000 cars off the road.

We’re proud of these and other achievements, and we will continue with the same purposeful actions that have elevated our performance in the social, environmental and economic aspects of our business.

We invite you to continue to track our progress and engage with us through this website. Your input and support is essential to finding a balance between economically delivering the energy we need while minimizing the environmental and social impacts of our operations.