Rothesay Netherwood School Presentation (May 2010)

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• Canadian Building Trades Conference (May 2010)

  Speaker: Mark Sherman, General Manager, Irving Oil Refinery

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• Canadian Oil Heat Association Annual Conference (June 2010)

  Speaker: Gary Bischof, General Manager, Irving Oil Commercial

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Speaker: Dale Cooper, Manager of Processing, Irving Oil Refinery

Good morning,

I know I speak for all of us at Irving Oil when I say it’s impressive and reassuring to know that you, our youth, are taking the issue of environmental sustainability very seriously, and it’s fantastic to have the opportunity to speak to a group of students who are so committed to making a difference. Protecting the environment where we all live and work is something we all care about, and at Irving Oil, we are always striving to become more energy efficient and reduce our carbon footprint.

As mentioned, I’m responsible for ensuring the day-to-day operations at the refinery go smoothly and efficiently. I want to tell you a bit about our refinery, its role in the community and its environmental performance. Let’s start however by finding out what you know about oil production. You already know that from crude oil comes fuels like diesel and gasoline and such. But do any of you know some of the more ‘unlikely’ products that come from refining?

What about ingredients for toothpaste? Or shampoo… What the nylon of your backpack? The polyester in your shirts…The plastic in your waterbottle…The ink from your pens? All of these products are made in part from oil.

In fact, no matter where you look in your life, you’re using materials that are made from products that come from refining crude oil. Even when you think about your morning routine, turning on a light in the morning, getting food from the fridge, to riding to school on rubber tires (be it bike, car or bus), globally, rightly or wrongly, we are all entirely dependent on energy, 90 per cent of that energy coming from fossil fuels.

And you might ask, well what if we just stopped using fossil fuels, such as oil? Well, safe to say our quality of life would change drastically.

Given all of this, we now can understand why we can’t take oil production out of the equation, yet. We’re many years away from a world that runs 100 per cent on completely green, alternative energies. So, given that reality, I want to talk to you about our company, our refinery and what we’re doing to ensure that our refinery is one of the cleanest and greenest in North America.

First, it’s important to know a bit about Irving Oil’s background. Our company was founded by K.C. Irving. He opened the Irving Oil Refinery fifty years ago, in 1960. At the time, it was the most technologically advanced in North America, and had an initial capacity of processing 40,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

Today, fifty years later, the Irving Oil Refinery has grown to be Canada’s largest, processing around 300,000 barrels of crude oil per day. It produces clean gasoline, ultra low-sulphur diesel, propane, jet fuel, butane, asphalt and more. Seventy-five per cent of its gasoline production goes to the United States. To give you a sense of scale, is anyone here from the Boston-area? More than one out of every six cars in Boston runs on fuel produced here at the Irving Oil Refinery.

So when you tour the refinery later today, keep in mind you’re visiting not only the largest refinery in Canada, but the largest along the Eastern seaboard. And of course, with that size, comes great responsibility. And that’s what we’re here to talk about today.

When our company first started out, ‘global warming’, ‘carbon footprints’ and ‘green energy’ were terms that had not even been invented yet. Today, they are fundamental to our operations and growth. We all live and work here, and minimizing our impact on the environment is a priority for us.

The Irving Oil Refinery has an environmental policy that has three pillars, including:

-       Promoting environmental responsibility, pollution prevention and sustainability within our refinery.

-       Maintaining our reputation as a good neighbour and;

-       Improving our environmental performance.

So what does that mean? How can a refinery prevent pollution? Or enhance its environmental performance? Particularly when we’re talking about a refinery located in the heart of a city?

The answer is that it takes creativity, technology, and a relentless commitment to the cause.

Let me give you an example of the creative approach we take towards environmental sustainability. Does anyone here drink pop? You probably don’t know that the bubbles in your coke or pepsi may have come from our refinery.

We partner with a company called Praxair to capture the carbon dioxide that is emitted from our refinery. This company takes our carbon dioxide and turns it into food grade CO₂, which is then used to put the bubbles in soda pop. To date, we’ve put the bubbles in over a billion cans of pop and captured and recycled hundreds of thousands of metric tones of CO₂ each year that would otherwise have ended up in the atmosphere. Our company has continued to successfully reduce our CO₂ output on a year over year basis, and our CO₂ capture and recycle program would be part of that success.

I can say very confidently that we are the only refinery in the world with a Ducks Unlimited wetlands at our doorstep. The 250-acre wetlands were established after the refinery was built, not before. There are all kinds of migratory birds and wildlife that live here, and they remind us every day to work in-step with nature and to do all we can to minimize our impact on the environment.

Another creative example of our company working to reduce our carbon footprint is our on-site transportation system. We used to have dozens of cars transporting workers from one end of the refinery to the other. Today, bikes, golf carts and buses are the alternative mode of transport on our 780 acre facility. We’ve taken dozens of cars off the road as a result.

Investing in proven technology is a huge piece of our commitment to increase our energy efficiency and improve air quality.

In 2008, our company invested $70 million in building a unit that reduced sulphur dioxide emissions by more than 25 per cent. As a result, we have one of the lowest sulphur emission rates compared to other Canadian refineries.

We’ve installed an ultra-efficient $90 million cogeneration plant, which uses one fuel to produce two forms of energy, power and steam. Over 90 per cent of the refinery’s energy is generated within the facility.

We were the first oil company to install the technology required to produce ultra-clean, low-sulphur gasoline, years ahead of government regulation. As a result, Irving Oil was the first oil company ever awarded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Clean Air Excellence Award.

Recently, we became the first Canadian company to undertake ethanol blending in gasoline, again, years ahead of government regulation that will make it mandatory for all oil companies.

We also conduct annual fugitive emissions and tank seal replacement programs to prevent and reduce emissions. New tank seals and converting tanks to internal floating roofs (as opposed to external floating roofs) reduces Volatile Organic Compounds and odours from tanks.

To give some general perspective around the impact technology can have and has had for our company: in order for our refinery to run, we are granted operating permits from the government. These permits tell us how much we can have in emissions in a single year. I’m proud to say our company consistently comes in well below the maximum allowable limits that are set by our provincial government.

But, there are still many challenges for us. As I mentioned earlier, in order for our refinery to be sustainable, we have to be relentless and progressive in our environmental efforts. We need to continue to reduce our carbon footprint and we need to develop alternative energies. In short, we need to look at the future and figure out how we can adapt to it. We want to be part of the green energies movement.

We’re already moving in that direction. We recently built Canada’s first LNG (liquefied natural gas) terminal in partnership with the Spanish company Repsol. Natural gas is a safe, clean, environmentally friendly energy source and a major part of the global energy market.  While natural gas reserves are abundant, much of this gas is located in regions distant from consuming markets. In building an LNG terminal, we can bring this green energy choice to consumers along the east coast.

And here at our refinery, we continue to invest in technology that will enhance its environmental performance. Next summer, we will start up the ‘DeHex’, a machine that will reduce the benzene content in our gasoline. The benzene reduced fuel will also reduce the likelihood of benzene content in fugitive emissions at the refinery.

We’re also currently constructing a vapour recovery unit at our product loading terminal, which will reduce Volatile Organic Compounds from the terminal by 90 per cent when loading gasoline as well as reduce odour.

I’ve thrown a lot of information at you here, but in closing, the main message I want to leave you with is that we all live and work here. We’re all invested in ensuring we continue to reduce our impact on the environment and operate the cleanest, greenest refinery in North America. We’re proud of our track record, but we won’t rest on that. We’re all responsible for making a difference, whether it’s at home or at work.

You will one day be the leaders in your community and in business, and you will need to be relentless and creative in your efforts to tackle climate change. I congratulate all of you on your work to educate yourself on the issue of climate change. Not only because I believe it’s necessary, but because it gives me and the rest of the ‘older’ generation belief that we’re moving in the right direction.

Thank you for your time today.