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Sustainable Development
For us, sustainable development means helping to meet the world’s growing energy needs in economically, socially and environmentally responsible ways. We embed these aspects in our business decisions.
We aim to share benefits and limit our impact by carefully selecting our project investments, by improving the way we run our operations, and by making better products.
One of our goals is to improve the way we design, build and run our operations to lessen environmental impact and to benefit local communities.
Our Business Principles - opens in new window have included our commitment to contribute to sustainable development since 1997. This requires us to balance short- and long-term interests, and to integrate economic, environmental and social considerations into business decision-making.
This is the approach we have taken to developing and operating the billion-dollar Pohokura plant in Taranaki, New Zealand’s largest oil and gas resource. In 2010 the plant won an environmental award from the Taranaki Regional Council for sustainable development and technical innovation. The award recognised the project’s commitment to reducing the plant’s impact on the environment.
When developing the field on behalf of our joint venture partners Todd Energy and OMV, we used an innovative technique called horizontal directional drilling to preserve the culturally and environmentally sensitive local shoreline. Instead of running a pipeline over a nearby cliff face and across the foreshore we decided, after community consultation, to drill and insert the pipeline behind the cliff face and take it underground for 1.5km out to sea.
This enabled the offshore platform to be linked to the onshore production station without any visible or physical impact on the coastline.
Other environmental features at Pohokura include an extensively planted reed bed which forms part of the production station’s stormwater disposal system. The bed acts as a natural filter, removing organic compounds that could have an impact on the environment. Extensive riparian planting was also undertaken by a local employment trust to protect and enhance water quality.
The entire Pohokura operation is unmanned and managed remotely from Shell’s offices in the centre of New Plymouth. This keeps operating costs down and reduces the plant’s environmental footprint.
Both the production station and offshore platform are designed with a high level of reliability, reducing the need for human intervention and associated emissions.
Shell is proud to be able to deliver natural gas from Pohokura to the New Zealand market in a safe, sustainable and technically advanced way.
