The world’s water resources will come under even greater stress between now and 2050. The main causes are the growth in agriculture and the expansion of cities to accommodate a growing global population. Climate change and the need for more unconventional oil (see Difficult oil) and biofuels will add to the pressure. While our industry is not a big water user, we have a contribution to make. In 2007, our operations used 574 million cubic metres of fresh water. This is 17% less than in 2000 and approximately 0.01% of the world’s total. And we are stepping up our efforts to reduce our use in locations where water is scarce.
Our Geelong Refinery, in drought-prone Australia, for example, completed a $46 million project in 2007 that reduced its water use by 110,000 cubic metres a year – enough to meet the annual needs of over 650 Geelong households. Changes included recovering and reusing steam in the manufacturing process, and improving systems for detecting and repairing water leaks.
At Pearl GTL, the world’s largest gas to liquids plant, which we are building in the Qatari desert with our partner Qatar Petroleum (see Sustainable transport), careful management of water was part of the design from the start. Some 12 million cubic metres of water a year will be generated mainly by the chemical reaction that turns the natural gas into GTL products. Pearl GTL will have a state-of-the-art water treatment facility that will clean this by-product to such a high level that it can be reused for steam, cooling water and other needs of the facility. As a result, the plant will take no fresh water from this largely arid region, and discharge no contaminated water to land or sea.
Through our participation in the Roundtables on Sustainable Biofuels and Sustainable Palm Oil, we are working to understand the implications of water use presented by the rapid growth in demand for transport biofuels (see Biofuels).
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