Carbon capture takes flight, forecast intake exceeded at facility

Gary Park

for Petroleum News

A trail-blazing venture in Alberta to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is setting a global standard after only five years in operation and drawing praise from one-time sceptics such as Alberta Premier Jason Kenney.

The Quest carbon capture and storage, CCS, project at Shell Canada’s Scotford refining complex near Edmonton has already passed a milestone of sequestering 5 million metric tons - five times initial projections and the equivalent of removing 1.25 million cars from the road.

The cost of running Quest, which draws its CCS from the oil sands, is about 35% less than originally forecast in 2015, while downtime has been less than 1% a year.

Shell has carried what it has learned from Quest, built at a cost of C$1.3 billion with C$745 million from the Alberta government and C$120 million in federal funds, to other CCS projects around the world, including the recently sanctioned Northern Lights project in Norway, along with Total and Equinor as partners.

In 2017, a majority block of Quest was purchased by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. as part of its blockbuster C$12.7 billion deal that included the bulk of Shell’s oil sands assets in Alberta and the Scotford Upgrader, which converts raw oil sands bitumen into synthetic crude for refining.

Shell explores more CCS projects

“We see that as a pathway to decarbonizing our industry and supporting energy transition,” Kassam said.

She said a reservoir below the upgrader stores the carbon emissions and is handling the carbon dioxide with greater ease than had been initially expected.

Kassam said that if Quest could be replicated savings could be about 30% below the anticipated operating costs of about C$40 per metric ton of stored CO2, while the cost of building a new facility could be C$80 per mt, compared with the initial estimate of C$120 per mt.

In 2014, the Alberta government spent C$1.4 billion in two CCS ventures, including Quest - spending that accounted for 10% of world investment in CCS.

But Rachel Notley, leader of the socialist New Democratic Party that won government in 2015, insisted CCS was too expensive for her administration and, instead, introduced a strongly opposed carbon levy in an effort to reduce emissions.

Kenney, after ousting the NDP regime last year, dumped the Notley carbon tax in favor of a new program that lowered the taxation rate while shelving his earlier doubts about CCS.

“Carbon capture and storage is working and Quest is a model facility that others are learning from across the globe to scale up CCS,” he said earlier in July.

Energy Minister Sonya Savage said Quest’s milestones are a “perfect example of how the use of game-breaking technology will enable Alberta to build on our existing energy foundation and pave the way for emerging sectors to grow and prosper.”

- GARY PARK