Global freshwater consumption 1 Millions of cubic meters
One of the recent highlights related to our long-term association with WHC is at our Billings refinery. The 110-acre WHC-certified wildlife habitat at our Billings refinery has served as a learning lab since 2002 for Rocky Mountain College and, starting in 2015, Billings Senior High School. The refinery’s conservation efforts have earned international recognition by the WHC and the habitat program has received WHC certification for a decade. In 2015, the site achieved WHC CLL certification, allowing the refinery to more fully use the habitat area for education purposes, especially field research. The students from Rocky Mountain College and Billings Senior High School are making good use of the opportunity and have recently collaborated to install nets for a fishery and turtle survey in an effort to enhance their environmental curricula. Water management Water and energy are interrelated. Water is essential for providing energy and energy is needed to deliver clean water to people. This connection, or nexus, between energy and water highlights the importance of these resources for society and the environment. As such, we work to prevent adverse impacts to water resources from our withdrawals and discharges and prudently manage the water we do use. ExxonMobil develops and implements water management strategies, most notably at the local level, that take into consideration quality and availability, as well as potential trade-offs, such as varied operational efficiencies, increased energy use or the consequences of producing more concentrated waste streams. For more information about how ExxonMobil manages water, visit our website.
In 2010, the Cold Lake operations of our Canadian affiliate, Imperial Oil, became the first oil and gas operator in Canada to be certified by the WHC. This site was re-certified in 2015, demonstrating our continued commitment to conservation excellence. By the end of 2015, we actively managed approximately 7,100 acres of land for the benefit of wildlife, which includes assessing habitats, developing plans to enhance or sustain wildlife, implementing the plans and monitoring the status at 16 of our sites through 18 certified programs. Over the past year, there has been a reduction in the number of wildlife habitat programs and acreage certified through WHC. This change reflects the consolidation of sites to our Houston campus and the sale or disposition of previously owned sites. It is our hope that the new owners will continue management of the properties for wildlife habitat valuable to those commu- nities. During the site consolidation process, our employees turned their efforts toward certification of the Houston campus property, achieved in 2014, and continue to seek opportunities at other locations for enhancing wildlife habitat and providing environmental education to local communities.
2007
320
2008
350
2009
340
330
2010
370
2011
330
2012
280
2013
2014
270
2015
300
We recognize that some of our operations use significant amounts of water, and we understand the necessity to engage with stakeholders regarding their concerns about the use and protection of local water resources. For example, the amount of water needed to hydraulically fracture a typical shale gas well ranges from 3 million to 4 million gallons. However, it is important to put this quantity into perspective. For example, the World Resources Institute found that the average golf course in the United States uses 4 million gallons of water in less than one summer month. In fact, hydraulic fracturing operations account for less than 5 percent of our total water consumption. For more information on our water consumption, see the performance graph above. 1 We report freshwater intensity alongside consumption data in our performance data (pages 90-92). Freshwater intensity is the ratio of net freshwater consumption to the amount of throughput or production. Normalized in this way, we can better understand how efficiently we are using freshwater in our operations. Data collection began in 2007. Includes XTO Energy data beginning in 2011. ExxonMobil's global freshwater consumption in 2015 was 300 million cubic meters.This represents a 30 million cubic meter increase when compared to our 2014 global freshwater consumption. Since 2012, we have actively maintained our freshwater consumption below our 2011 performance.
ExxonMobil’s approach to water use
Water use In 2015, the net freshwater consumption at our operations was 300 million cubic meters, representing more than a 5 percent decline since 2007, in part due to the development and implementation of local water management strategies. ExxonMobil’s total freshwater consumption includes use by refineries and chemical plants, oil and gas production, and onshore shale resources development in the United States.
Rocky Mountain College wildlife biology students and members of the Billings Senior High School STEM Society engage in habitat research at ExxonMobil’s Billings refinery’s wildlife habitat area in Montana.
Environmental performance exxonmobil.com/citizenship
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