It’s time once again for our Annual Year In Review interviews! Last February 2020, William Prentice, Meridian Energy Group, comments on their newest certification Environmental and Social Management Plan (“ESMP”). The ESMP is intended to reaffirm Meridian’s commitment to the environmentally and socially responsible development and operation of its facilities and the company’s alignment with the environmental and social risk management framework set forth in the Equator Principles.
“..so what we’ve done is adopt everything that we began doing for Davis back in 2014 and put that into a environmental and social management plan, which is now a key corporate governance document. It has the same weight and sense of purpose to it as our overall strategic plan does.
And the key facets of it are, again I mentioned the Equator Principles earlier, there are are ten principles involved in that in that organizing set of documents. We went through this process with both of our investment bankers here over the past three or four months and an exhaustive review by them as to where we were on all ten of those principles, and where we have been in compliance with them for years. And that just runs the gamut of you know how you think about a project whether it’s a major project or minor and all of our projects are treated as major.”
He gives a timeline and lays out how those Equator Principals will be implemented into their business plan.
Prentice also explains how they have formed an Environmental, Social and Governance (“ESG”) Committee of executive officers and experts to support Meridian’s ongoing implementation of the ESMP. The ESG Committee will advise Meridian’s CEO and Board of Directors regarding environmental, health and safety, corporate social responsibility, corporate governance, sustainability and related policy matters.
Prentice also gives an update on the Davis Refinery and Walton Refinery. The Davis Refinery is located just outside of Belfield, ND, in the Bakken oilfields. The Walton Refinery is located near Kermit, TX, in the Permian Basin.
The interview also dives into the “new normal” in oil and gas projects. Prentice explains how litigation and eco-activists have created new challenges in project management.
Energy innovation and environmental planning is also discussed in detail in the interview.
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