Colombians visit Millar Western on environmental tour, TV covers the news
In Alberta to gather information on how environmental priorities are handled in other jurisdictions, a group of 25 engineers from Colombian oil and gas company Ecopetrol spent the day at Millar Western’s Whitecourt operations July 10th.
The Colombians, managers-in-training for Ecopetrol, were guests of Enbridge, touring that and other companies’ facilities to learn about environmental practices in our province. They spent time, too, at the University of Alberta, receiving lectures on energy policy, natural resource and environmental law, social investment and supply chain management.
To expand their knowledge base, the group had requested that Enbridge arrange stops with companies outside the oil and gas sector that had achieved excellence in environmental and social issues management. Alerted by TAK International’s Brian Trendel to our company’s recent recognition under Alberta’s EnviroVista program, Enbridge asked Millar Western to arrange a tour and discussions at our Whitecourt pulp operation.
The July 10th visit started with a presentation covering aspects of Millar Western’s mill and woodlands environmental management systems. Senior VP-Pulp Ron Reis provided a company overview, Mill Manager Dave Martell explained mill operations and environmental controls, and Environmental Health & Safety Coordinator Shelley MacLean reviewed the company’s forest management practices and certification processes. Also discussed were Millar Western’s public consultation and community investment initiatives.
Next came the pulp mill tour, which featured a roof-top view of site operations and discussion of Millar Western’s waste management processes, from the use of sawmill chips for pulp making and of pulp and lumber byproducts for electricity generation, to the advanced methods used to treat pulp mill effluent. The visiting engineers found the mill tour and process descriptions highly relevant to their own work. They were also interested to learn more about sustainable forest management principles and the work being done by Millar Western to apply integrated land management practices on a land base shared with oil and gas firms and many other forest users.
The Colombian group arrived at Millar Western accompanied by a reporter and camera crew from Radio-Canada’s Telejournal news program. The CBC French network’s Edmonton TV station was preparing a feature story on the engineers’ visit and jumped at the chance to film them at a working industrial facility.
Click the links below to view the resulting news story, which aired July 18, as well as photos from the Colombians’ tour of our operations and a copy of Millar Western’s presentation to the group.
Photo: Ecopetrol engineers receive presentation
