Land Management and Biodiversity

Conventional oil and gas development has a long history in Western Canada. Hundreds of operators have built infrastructure to access, process and transport oil and gas. This development, combined with forestry and agriculture activity, an increasing population and expanding transportation grid, has resulted in cumulative land impacts.

Efforts to reduce the footprint of our operations and manage any potential cumulative land impacts are integrated into all stages of our operations. We are doing this by:

• Collaborating with stakeholders including communities, First Nations, regulators, governments and industry to develop and implement integrated planning.
• Managing our impact on biodiversity by adapting plans and operations where practical to reduce potential impacts on species at risk.
• Implementing land management best practices in our operations and piloting innovative practices for reducing our impact.
• Measuring our land footprint and identifying opportunities for improvement.

Measuring our Footprint

The first step in managing the footprint of our operations is measuring and understanding our impact. In 2008 we identified this as an area for increased focus and we made a commitment to track and report the impact of our surface-land footprint and set reduction targets. We have not yet developed a unified internal system or process for tracking our footprint in real time. Currently, we use over 10 internal and external data sources, which do not provide an accurate estimate of our land footprint. The development of a unified system that addresses the needs of all areas of our business and is consistent with ConocoPhillips’ global tracking efforts could take another two to four years.

To help us better understand and correct inaccuracies that exist in our land footprint data, we initiated a pilot study in the Grande Prairie area of northwest Alberta.

The Grande Prairie and District Pilot Study

In 2008, we made a sustainable development commitment to track and report our land footprint. An important step was to launch a pilot program in the Grande Prairie area of northwest Alberta to track our footprint and gain a clearer picture of our impact on the landscape. The pilot program’s results will draw conclusions about the cause, nature, extent and implication of inaccurate land footprint data and take corrective actions.

The focus of the pilot are the Crown-land portions of the Grande Prairie area. This pilot also fulfills a regulatory requirement of an Area Operating Agreement with Alberta Sustainable Resource Development.

The pilot program consists of a ‘self-inspection’ program, where field staff visited our wellsites, access roads and pipelines. Each inspection compares our actual footprint to the documented footprint and assesses if our activity had resulted in impacts such as erosion, weeds, etc. The pilot study includes approximately 1,500 sites out of approximately 8,000 sites Alberta Sustainable Resource Development requires us to inspect.

We expect the full results of the pilot to be available in 2010. A preliminary self-assessment identified that over 35 percent of wellsites, access roads or pipelines inspected showed areas for improvement. The seriousness of these compliance issues ranged from administrative issues to potential environmental concerns around erosion at watercourse crossings. During the pilot study we immediately took steps to mitigate all sites where there was an environmental concern or data inaccuracy was identified while capturing the finding in our database.

Integrated Land Management

The Foothills Research Institute’s Foothills Landscape Management Forum works with a variety of stakeholders including oil and gas companies, forestry and government to minimize land disturbance by planning projects to share primary access corridors. The Forum uses spatial mapping tools and industry development plans to identify opportunities to avoid sensitive areas, important habitat and identify disturbance thresholds. Development plans can then be modified to meet these needs.

We work closely with the Foothills Research Institute and are a corporate sponsor, providing research sponsorship support of $50,000 per year over the past two years (and in 2010) and another $25,000 per year to support the Integrated Landscape Management Program. Examples of integrating planning efforts include:

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• Canada-wide
• Oil Sands
• Arctic

• The Foothills Landscape Management Forum is working with the government of Alberta to determine the feasibility of developing a regional access development corridor plan for the Little Smoky area. The plan will provide a longer planning horizon with the hopes of reducing the human footprint through a higher degree of integrated use and enhanced restoration efforts.
• The Foothills Research Institute’s Stream Crossing Association is working to evaluate impacts and implement mitigations to aquatic habitat in the upper Athabasca basin. In 2007, three of 10 ConocoPhillips Canada-owned crossings in the area were identified as barriers to fish passage and having unacceptable levels of siltation. These crossings were restored in the summer of 2009.