Gibson Energy Inc. wants to be an environmental leader in the oil and gas industry and believes its Moose Jaw refinery could play a role in this initiative, particularly with geothermal.
While discussing first-quarter results during a conference call recently, Steve Spaulding, president and chief executive officer, explained that the company is in “the very early stages” of reviewing all its assets to see how it can become involved in the renewable energy market.
“We have a team set up specifically for building out renewable power opportunities, and potentially, Scope 1 reduction opportunities,” he said. “But we hope to really have some things going and approved and moving forward by the end of the year … .”
Solar power is potentially the No. 1 renewable resource Gibson Energy could pursue, especially in Saskatchewan and at its Texas terminal, he pointed out. While Moose Jaw is the company’s best Canadian property for solar, the municipality only produces 75 per cent of what its Texas refinery does for solar power.
“We’re definitely going to look at solar opportunities,” Spaulding added. “But potentially, there at Moose Jaw, there might be a geothermal opportunity that may be better than a solar opportunity for us.”
Refinery upgrades
There are three categories upon which the company will focus during the next 10 years, including greenhouse gas emissions, diversity and inclusion, and community outreach. Each category has a target and the year when Gibson Energy wants to achieve that metric.
For example, the company wants to reduce the Moose Jaw refinery’s emissions by 15 per cent by 2025, while it hopes to have an absolute reduction in company-wide “scope 2” emissions of 100 per cent by 2030, the news release said. Gibson Energy plans to do this even though it “has one of the lowest GHG emissions footprints within the Canadian energy infrastructure space.”
Gibson Energy has made meaningful progress in reducing its GHG emissions, including its recent $20-million investment at the Moose Jaw refinery that included new thermal heat exchanger technology, the release continued. This will result in an anticipated reduction in emissions intensity of nearly 25 per cent.
Continuing its focus to improve the emission profile of the Moose Jaw plant, the company has also allocated funding within its 2021 budget to further reduce emissions intensity by switching to natural gas from a feedstock-based fuel supply.
Sustainability
The company also recently announced that it planned to grow its sustainability and environmental, social and governance (ESG) targets and align them with national frameworks. It also planned to build on its industry-leading ESG ratings that several globally recognized rating agencies had awarded it.
“Gibson strongly believes in the importance of engraining sustainability and ESG principles throughout all parts of the organization in order to best position the company for success over the long term,” Spaulding said in a news release.
“The core principles of sustainability and ESG have been a part of Gibson for a very long time, as reflected by our current rankings from third-party ESG ratings agencies,” he continued. “However, over the past year, we began placing increased focus on evolving our sustainability practices and improving our disclosure and transparency.
“Today, by setting out relevant, measurable targets, we are taking the next step as we continue to do our part in addressing global environmental and social challenges and remain a leader for positive change within our industry.”
CDP, which rates companies’ environmental efforts, has given Gibson Energy an A-minus. This puts the company in the top 10 per cent globally within the industry, a news release said. Meanwhile, international company MSCI gave Gibson Energy a rank of AA — the highest is AAA — for its ESG efforts.
