Evidence of meeting #62 for Natural Resources in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was tidal.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Senior Vice-President, Resources Division, Imperial Oil Limited
We invest a lot of money. We're investing—
December 11th, 2012 / 12:25 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Resources Division, Imperial Oil Limited
We're investing a lot of money.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
Okay, so you're not going to answer the question.
If you pay $12.4 billion a year, you're making, I'm going to say, $100 billion a year. Do you think an industry that makes anywhere between $100 billion and $200 billion a year needs subsidies?
Senior Vice-President, Resources Division, Imperial Oil Limited
I can't speak to subsidies. Our company represents a group of shareholders, most of them private shareholders.
Senior Vice-President, Resources Division, Imperial Oil Limited
I'm not aware of any subsidies, sir. We pay a lot in taxes, we pay a lot in royalties. We invest billions of dollars a year at Imperial, over $5 billion in 2012. Our shareholders want a return on that investment.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
Probably $100 billion to $200 billion a year is a lot money returned to the shareholders, but that's fine.
Mr. Woods, you said that your company could produce 2,500 megawatts of tidal electricity.
Chair of the Board, Fundy Ocean Research Center for Energy
I wish our company could. The Bay of Fundy has two energies: potential, which is the rise and fall of the tide, and kinetic, the in and the out. There are 7,000 megawatts of in and out; of that, 2,500 can be extracted safely. After that, you hold the water back so that it backs up somewhere down the Atlantic seaboard.
The goal is 2,500 megawatts in Nova Scotia. The Bay of Fundy is on both sides. We share this with New Brunswick.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
You also said that Nova Scotia requires 2,000 megawatts of electricity.
Chair of the Board, Fundy Ocean Research Center for Energy
That's our peak. We'll hit our peak sometime in February. It was 2,300, but we lost several pulp mills in the last year, so we're now down to a peak of 2,000.
NDP
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Thank you. Monsieur Gravelle, your time is up.
We go now to Mr. Calkins, for up to five minutes.
Go ahead, please.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
Just to make Mr. Scott a little more comfortable, I certainly hope that the investors, whether it's the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan or any other union of pension funds that are invested in Imperial Oil, really do appreciate that return on investment that your company provides.
I certainly hope that Mr. Gravelle is a little more lenient on investors in the Ring of Fire when those projects come to fruition.
NDP
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
This is my time, Mr. Gravelle. I didn't interrupt you.
Mr. Scott, I want to talk a little bit about this. I'm from Alberta. I’m fairly familiar—I've been to the oil sands many times. I've taken the aerial tours and talked to some folks on the ground. Your Kearl project sounds very interesting.
Can you enlighten the committee on the difference between some of the mining operations and the permits, the reclamation processes or the reclamation requirements as they were years ago when some of the older mines were first started, compared to what today's technology is enabling you to do?
The ongoing and not waiting until the end of mine life for reclamation is a significant advancement. How have the technology changes enabled you to do that? It used to be that the tailing ponds would sit there, settle out, and we'd have a massive reclamation at the end of the mining phase. How are you able to do this? As you're creeping forward, you're backfilling, it sounds like. What's enabling that to happen now?
Senior Vice-President, Resources Division, Imperial Oil Limited
One of the biggest enablers we're benefiting from is, the industry has been developing mines for a number of years and decided last year to share all of the learning, all of the technology that has been developed openly. There are 12 or 13 companies in this Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance. We've dropped down all the barriers for sharing best practices, research, and development. We've thrown it all into the mix. We've agreed that anybody who's a participant can freely use any technology they're given by the others.
Numerous technologies have been tried and tested. Many of them are currently under way. We've been able to pick—each one will differ, depending on the mine, the quality of your mine, and where you are in the stage of your mine at Kearl—a thickener technology that is right for Kearl, applying the learning of others, bringing them to Kearl. That will allow us to bind these clay particles that have traditionally been suspended. When you bind them, you can make much larger agglomerates. They settle, and we can put those settled thickened tailings right back into the mine instead of into a big tailings pond.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
The other thing you said was that once you prime your water pond for use, you'll never have to go back to the river again. Can you give some clarification on this? Did I understand that correctly?
Senior Vice-President, Resources Division, Imperial Oil Limited
We'll build sufficient to recycle most of the water, but as you're putting tailings back into the reservoir, some of the water actually stays with those tailings. We will need to withdraw a small amount over time.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
Right now, some of the technologies there say that we've reduced water usage from five barrels of water per barrel of oil down to around three, and about 80% of that is recycled. Is this going to improve on those numbers?
Senior Vice-President, Resources Division, Imperial Oil Limited
Those numbers continue to improve. We believe we'll get upwards of more than 90% recycled in the early days and we are currently working on technologies that will allow us to use, instead of fresh water, more brackish water that is in some of the aquifers around the mines.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
Right, so get some saline water from below. Of course, if you're able to do this, if you have water storage on site and you have the capacity, you'll be able to time your withdrawals from the river at, say, peak lows, right?
Senior Vice-President, Resources Division, Imperial Oil Limited
Absolutely. In fact, today we have the capability to shut off water withdraw during the winter period when the flow levels are low and only withdraw during the peaks.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
Okay, thank you. That's very helpful.
In the reclamation plan, or in the mining plan, perhaps you could just clarify one more thing. My understanding is Crow Lake, as it existed, was a fishless, alkali lake. Is that correct? In the reclamation plan, I believe what's in the plan there is to create a new habitat that will be fish bearing and be a little bit more productive than what Mother Nature had set down before. Is that true?
Senior Vice-President, Resources Division, Imperial Oil Limited
That's right. The natural Crow Lake is too shallow for fish to survive the winters. On the reclamation plan, we've already dug a larger lake deeper. We've put in habitats for fish and we're filling the lake right now, as we speak. This summer we'll start stocking the lake with fish that the aboriginal communities have helped us to pick.