Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance

On March 1, 2012, twelve of Canada’s largest oil sands producers jointly announced the formation and signing of a charter under the newly formed “Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance”. The goal of both the alliance and the charter is to address environmental issues relating to the oil sands through collaborative, action-oriented strategies.

The alliance consists of major players in the industry: BP Canada Energy Company, Canadian Natural Resources Limited, Cenovus Energy Inc., ConocoPhillips Canada Resources Corp., Devon Canada Corporation, Imperial Oil, Nexen Inc., Shell Canada Energy, Statoil Canada Ltd., Suncor Energy Inc., Teck Resources Limited and Total E&P Canada Ltd. The group’s initial focus will be on tailings ponds, greenhouse gas emissions, land and water. The alliance intends to use their collaborative powers to overcome obstacles within funding, human resources and intellectual property as they impact environmental performance on large-scale oil sands projects, and members have vowed to collectively develop new and innovative production methods that minimize environmental impact.

Canada’s Oil sands Innovation Alliance is not the first environmentally-focused association in the industry, as the Oil Sands Tailing Consortium, the Oil Sands Leadership Initiative and the Canadian Oil Sands Network for Research and Development pre-exist the alliance. However, this new alliance is the most broadly based of its kind, and boasts some of the most influential executives in the business.