Green Century Capital Management filed a shareholder resolution with ExxonMobil to disclose information about its investments in Canadian oil sands as it exposed the oil giant to significant financial and regulatory risks, Triple Pundit reported on Thursday.
By the end of last year, ExxonMobil’s total proved reserves in the oil sands were over 2.78bn barrels — just over 11% of the company’s total proved reserves, according to a press release by Green Century.
Canada’s oil sands — the world’s third largest recoverable oil reserves after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela — have attracted intense scrutiny in recent days as the US Congress heard submissions about the extension of the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to Texas.
““ExxonMobil’s considerable investments in the oil sands expose the company to significant financial and regulatory risks, yet the company fails to provide meaningful disclosure on this important issue,” said Larisa Ruoff, Director of Shareholder Advocacy for Green Century. “Without transparency, shareholders have no way of knowing how the company is managing and mitigating these potential risks.”
Earlier this week MINING.com reported on how Canada’s oil sands are poised to become the number one supply of crude to the US.
“According to testimony before the US Congress concerning the construction of the $7bn Keystone XL pipeline extension from Alberta to Texas, crude produced by Canada’s oil sands, which represent just over half the country’s total production, has already surpassed the total volume of imports from the US number two supplier Mexico.
Since 2000 Canada’s oil sands output has more than doubled: from 600,000 barrels to about 1.5m barrels per day in 2010. Canada supplies 2m barrels per day or 22% of US crude oil imports, up from 15% a decade earlier. The sands’ 175bn barrels of recoverable oil places Canadian oil reserves third in the world behind Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.”