How Industry Protects the Environment

Industry practice has changed a lot in the past 50 years, even the past 10 years. Advancements in technology allow us to conduct many aspects of our operations far more efficiently than just a few years ago. This efficiency translates to smaller "footprints" (the amount of surface area disturbed), less waste generated, cleaner and safer operations, and greater compatibility with the environment.

Technology advances are making exploration, development, production, processing and distribution of oil and natural gas cheaper, more efficient, and more protective of the environment. Major contributions to future domestic supplies must come from new frontiers in such geologically challenging and operationally complex settings as the Alaskan North Slope, deep formations, deepwater offshore, and lower permeability formations in the Rocky Mountain States. Today’s producers are applying a host of new technologies and strategies to minimize the environmental impact of oil and natural gas operations in these frontier regions.

The brief reports linked here will illustrate how the oil and natural gas industry takes many steps to assure that exploration and production operations offshore, onshore or in the Arctic can take place with very little environmental impact.