At its core, environmentalism is about good stewardship – respecting the air, land and water as we thoughtfully put to good use the earth’s resources. Like natural gas and oil, which are vital to fulfilling modern expectations for life, health and prosperity. In our industry, environmental stewardship is a core value that professionals like Anadarko Petroleum’s Colleen Faber help advance every day.
We introduced Colleen in our 2018 State of American Energy report. She’s a health, safety and environmental supervisor, working in northeast Wyoming, where the company has had extensive natural gas operations. She ensures that landscapes where the buffalo roam and the deer and antelope play still look that way once energy development is over.
Here’s an on-location video we made with her earlier this year:
Worth underscoring is the extensive planning and research that allows the prairie, like the one where Colleen was interviewed, to continue teeming with wildlife – as well as the effort Anadarko and other natural gas and oil companies put in to include stakeholders in pre-development discussions. This is a great quote from her:
“We always need to remember that we’re guests on their land and treat it respectfully. … Our ability to actually develop responsibly and be good stewards of the land is absolutely possible, and putting that land back the way it was or better … is possible and does happen.”
More broadly, our industry’s commitment to environmental stewardship is seen in a number of ways:
- We’re producing more and more of the natural gas our country needs with decreasing methane emissions – down 14 percent between 1990 and 2016, according to EPA, even as production rose more than 50 percent.
- The new Environmental Partnership is bringing together natural gas and oil companies to share scientific data and knowledge to further reduce methane emissions.
- Thanks to the increased use of natural gas – abundant because of safe and responsible development – U.S. carbon dioxide emissions are near 25-year lows.
- Using advanced drilling technologies and data analytics, companies are more precise in their operations, sending out multiple laterals from a single vertical well, reducing the surface footprint by as much as 90 percent – making Colleen’s job easier.
- Between 1990 and 2016, our industry invested more than $339 billion in improving the environmental performance of our fuels, operations and facilities.
Ultimately, environmental stewardship hinges on the work of trained professionals like Colleen Faber, who do what they do with a strong, personal commitment to responsible natural gas and oil development. As we mark Earth Day 2018 this Sunday, that kind of stewardship – from before development starts all the way through to reclaiming land for future generations – is part of industry’s lasting contribution.
By Mark Green
Originally posted April 16, 2018
Energy Tomorrow is brought to you by the American Petroleum Institute (API), which is the only national trade association that represents all aspects of America’s oil and natural gas industry. Our more than 500 corporate members, from the largest major oil company to the smallest of independents, come from all segments of the industry. They are producers, refiners, suppliers, pipeline operators and marine transporters, as well as service and supply companies that support all segments of the industry.
