Reducing our water use

Oman, where we clear contaminated water using reed beds

While concerns about water are not new, water scarcity is increasingly visible. In a number of places, water reserves are being used up or polluted faster than they can be replenished. And the world’s water resources will come under even greater stress between now and 2050. This is because demand for water will continue to rise as populations grow and get richer. In many places, demand will outstrip the replenishable supply of clean water. Contamination will add to the problem. The main culprits are growth in agriculture and the expansion of cities.

Our industry is not a big water user, compared for example, to agriculture. But growing crops to make biofuels and mining bitumen from oil sands can be water intensive; and some oil and gas operations use (and produce) quantities of water that can be significant in water stressed areas. In 2008, our operations used approximately 224 million m3 of fresh water.

Much can be done to reduce our water footprint. Our Pearl GTL plant, for example, has been designed to take no fresh water from its arid surroundings. The Schoonebeek project in the Netherlands will re-use municipal wastewater to make steam. In Oman, a project is moving ahead to plant reed beds that will clean up all the 45,000 m3a day of water brought to the surface when the joint venture we are part of produces oil. This will allow that water to be put to use. Because water supplies are local, we need to take a facility-by-facility approach. Our priority is locations where water is scarce. New technology and approaches are helping us in these locations.