Economy and local community

We directly employ 2,000 staff at our oil sands operation, with thousands more jobs generated in areas such as transport, construction and supplies. We spent over CDN $210m on supplies and services from local Aboriginal contractors in 2008. The community of Fort McMurray near our Muskeg River Mine has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country – 3.5% compared to the 6.1% national average.

We pay royalties and taxes from our oil sands business to national, regional and local governments in Canada. These funds are helping, for example, to expand healthcare, education and roads.

We consult with landowners, residents and local groups to identify their concerns and work towards solutions. To help with this we belong to several local and industry organisations including:

We built Albian Village to house 2,500 workers near our Jackpine Mine.

To ease pressure on local housing and transport services we built our own accommodation facility near our Jackpine Mine, 75km north of Fort McMurray, to house 2,500 workers.

We also built an airstrip and we run shuttle buses to transport workers, equipment and supplies to our site.

We have invested close to CDN $10M with the local communities in the areas around our oil sands operations since we started up in 2003. These extra investments benefit around 200 organisations, including:

• Building Environmental Aboriginal Human Resources - opens in new window - in 2009 we contributed CDN$100,000 in a programme to train Aboriginal people from across Canada to work in the environmental sector.
• Women Building Futures - opens in new window – we invested CDN$100,000 to help more than 300 women train to secure well-paid jobs and move out of poverty.
• Northern Alberta Institute of Technology – we contributed CDN$2.5 million for new facilities and over CDN$500,000 in student scholarships and bursaries.