On a date that commemorates the value of nature and the importance of sustainable development, we take a moment to reflect on the challenges involved in our environmental management.

“Our mission is to help the energy industry pursue its projects in a manner compatible with the well-being of the society where we are located.” The words belong to Stephen Wharton, Environmental Sr. Manager, and they describe a paradigm shift: today the environment has become a core issue for the evolution of the energy sector. So how are we doing? On World Environment Day, we analyze the challenges and results of our efforts to care for the soil, water, air and biodiversity. In other words, our care of life on our planet.

Responsible for our footprint

If the key to great actions is that they begin at home, in the case of our operations, it’s all about planning. “50% of our mitigation work takes place before projects reach implementation,” explains Stephen. For example, when we visit a field and observe that a facility has been located on the crest of a hill rather than on its slope, this means that earthworks have been avoided and machine hours saved. We always rely on environmental impact studies, and after projects have been implemented, we monitor all the environmental variables involved, including chemical or physical analyses. We are working very well on the basis of these premises, which is why we have a land footprint of just 1% at our facilities.”

Caring for water

Where does the water we use at our operations come from? What impact does our activity have on our neighboring communities and their water supply? What treatment do we give to the water we use? The answers to each of these questions have enabled us to carry out some far-reaching initiatives. One emblematic case is the aqueduct built to supply the processes at the Pesquería Power Plant with gray water, something that’s essential in the arid areas around Monterrey. And we’re constantly looking for opportunities for improvement. For example, we have already ensured that 85% of the water used in our operations comes from wastewater and in 2023, we set ourselves the task of developing plans to increase this reuse by an additional 5%.

Rescue, restore and revegetate

“We have some major recovery projects underway, such as the creation of a protected reserve in the Manacacías mountains in the municipality of San Martín, Colombia. We also make efforts to rescue flora and fauna and carry out protection measures in areas neighboring our facilities,” explains Stephen as he refers to the different initiatives in place to protect biodiversity. The numbers are a testament to the success of these efforts. In Mexico, we planted over 2,200 specimens as a result of our seedling rescue and relocation program while in Ecuador, we planted 200 trees during 2023 in the ravine near the La Merced neighborhood. We’ve also planted over 10,000 trees in the Gulf of San Jorge and have helped to revegetate 78.5 hectares in the Neuquén Basin.

A circular route

From the rock cuttings produced by drilling activities to people’s soda cans at lunch, at Tecpetrol, each type of waste is carefully segregated before being sent to a treatment plant for processing according to its nature (such as incineration, preparation for landfill, recycling, etc.). Our management is focused on the journey taken by each waste stream, which is how we have achieved great goals: in the Gulf of San Jorge, more than 70% of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) generated has been recycled or composted, while at the Pesquería Power Plant, we reduced solid materials impregnated with grease, oil, paint and chemicals by 11%.

Less emissions, more efficiency

Last but not least: the air we breathe. Reducing our greenhouse gas emissions (mainly carbon dioxide and methane) is a major challenge, one that we are dealing with by improving our inventories and focusing on the energy transition. “We have between 10 and 15 projects already adopted or in the implementation phase which arose from a series of workshops using a new design thinking system. For example, there’s an initiative that seeks to mitigate venting in the Neuquén Basin, using the gas previously burned onsite to generate electricity which in turn powers computing centers in the field. There is also an initiative to optimize processes, as we did in the Gulf of San Jorge, where we replaced diesel generators with new equipment and reduced emissions by 20% in a very short space of time. Today, environmental concerns are at the heart of our business—which also means getting more juice out of each joule (unit of energy), each liter of fuel and each cubic meter of gas!” says Stephen, who has three decades of experience in the sector.