Name
Joy Romero
Title:
Vice President Bitumen Production
Horizon Oil Sands
Company:
Canadian Natural Resources Limited
Years of Experience:
30
Location:
Fort McMurray, Alberta
Best part of the job:
“Working with a team of very
committed people who want
to make a difference
- helping our industry
become the best it can be.”
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Reusing Water
Oil sands is a relatively new science. We're learning things continuously and improving things everyday.
We are allocated a certain amount of water for our process. We don't want to bring one drop more of water on-site than we need to.
Over 80% of the water we use is recycled, and because we use CO2 that otherwise go to the atmosphere, we take much less water from the river.
We just keep using that same water over and over and over...
Every Drop of Water Counts
The more we know, the less water we use to produce a barrel of oil. With today’s technology, over 80% of the water used in our oil sands process is recycled over and over. But we’re not stopping there. We continue to improve and are designing even further reductions in water use.
The issue
Water is an important part of oil and gas production, and as Canada’s oil and gas industry grows, so does the demand on Canadian water resources.
What we’re doing
The upstream oil and gas industry is committed to using water responsibly. The industry is a leader in researching recycling techniques, reusing water and focusing on using non-drinkable water as an alternative to fresh water.
Read more about how the industry is working to reduce its water use
Technological developments enable us to reduce the amount of water we use, and increase our use of recycled and undrinkable water.
Canadian Natural Resources Limited is commercializing promising new ways to manage the tailings pond at its Horizon Oil Sands facility, 70 kilometers north of Fort McMurray. These new methods will require less storage space for fluid tailings, accelerate the process of reclamation and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Read more
"Where there was once an oil sands mining operation, you now have a beautiful, bio-diverse landscape again, where you’d never know there’d been a mine there in the first place."
Canada’s oil sands industry will provide a secure source of energy, reduce its impact on the environment and provide economic benefits to society while developing this globally significant resource.