Canadian Natural wins environmental approval for oilsands plan

A massive $ 8.5 bn, open-pit oilsands project proposed by Canadian Natural Resources has been approved by a joint panel that included Alberta's energy regulator and the federal environmental assessment agency. Approval for the Horizon project north of Fort McMurray, Alberta, comes with 17 conditions that must be met by the Calgary-based oil and gas producer for the project to go ahead. These conditions relate to mining operations, resource conservation, and tailings management.
"The joint panel has concluded that the project is unlikely to result in significant adverse environmental effects provided that the mitigation measures proposed... are implemented," it said.

Horizon is expected to produce 235,000 bpd by 2012 and contribute 8 % to Canada's daily oil production. The project, located about 70 km north of Fort McMurray, would create 2,400 permanent jobs in the region and up to 4,500 construction jobs during peak times. Canadian Natural has said that it plans to make a final go-ahead decision on Horizon sometime in the middle of 2004.
"This basically says that they can go ahead and do the construction from an environmental consideration," said energy analyst Wilf Gobert of Calgary-based Peters & Co. "The major consideration is economic -- and the board of directors of Canadian Natural will make that decision. The (energy and utilities board) does not rule on whether or not it's going to be profitable for the company to build this project."

The approval for Horizon comes after several weeks of public hearings in northern Alberta last fall. Among the concerns raised by more than 20 groups that presented to the three-person panel were fears that the region's health system and other basic infrastructure could not support another oilsands mega-project.
Aboriginal groups also voiced fears that the project would have dire impacts on the water threshold of the nearby Athabasca River. But the company countered that it would undertake reclamation efforts once it had finished mining and create new lakes and wildlife habitat. Environmentalists said they were disappointed but not surprised.

"It's a very carbon-intensive, fossil-fuel type of energy," said Elizabeth May of the Sierra Club of Canada. "We think that's a mistake in energy policy."
Rick Schneider of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society said it was time energy regulators began considering the cumulative impact of oilsands development.
"At what point do we reach an environmental tipping point?" he asked. "They're all being assessed one at a time and nobody's looking at the whole group of them."