Greenpeace Stages Protest At Suncor Oil Sands

Edward Welsch, September 30, 2009, Dow Jones, OTTAWA --In their second oil sands protest in two weeks, Greenpeace Canada activists entered Suncor Energy Inc.'s (SU.T) oil sands production facilities Wednesday morning and managed to scale and shut down one of the company's bitumen conveyors, a Greenpeace spokesman said.

Two dozen Greenpeace activists entered Suncor's facilities north of Fort McMurray, Alberta at 8:30 a.m. MDT, and 10 have climbed on top of a conveyor that pulls bitumen out of the oil sands mines there, said Mike Hudema, a climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace Canada.

Suncor confirmed that the activists had entered the site and said it is focused on "ensuring the safety and respectful treatment of activists and employees alike."

There will be no material effect on Suncor's operations, a spokeswoman said. She said most of Suncor's oil-sands operations were operating uninterrupted.

Suncor shares were flat at C$37.20 in recent trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

It's second time this month that Greenpeace activists infiltrated oil sands facilities. In a similar protest two weeks ago timed to correspond with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's visit with U.S. President Barrack Obama in Washington, D.C., Greenpeace activists entered an oil sands area owned by Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA, RDSB), chained themselves to equipment and temporarily stopped production.

Hudema said that Wednesday's protest was peaceful and that police were on the scene.

"The main reasons we are at the Suncor facility is both to stop an ongoing climate crime caused by the oil sands ... and to convey the message that people are literally dying for climate leadership," Hudema said.

Greenpeace calls oil produced in Canada's Athabasca region "dirty," alleging the greenhouse gas emissions and toxins the industry produces that contribute to global climate change, environmental destruction and health problems for local communities.

The Canadian oil sands industry is sensitive to these charges and has been trying to improve its image. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers says the industry is working on ways to reduce and capture emissions, restore land disturbed by open-pit production and reduce water use and the creation of hazardous tailings ponds created by open-pit oil sands production. But CAPP says claims like Greenpeace's are "exaggerated," saying that total emissions created by Canada's oil sands are less than 0.1% of the global total.