Expanding oil sands net

Williams Companies, the versatile Oklahoma-based energy firm, is building a new plant in the heart of Alberta’s oil sands region to boost petroleum production while reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the oil sands operations.

The facility, which will serve a Canadian Natural Resources plant to upgrade raw bitumen to synthetic crude, is predicted to curtail annual carbon dioxide emissions by 200,000 metric tons.

It is also designed to reduce emissions of sulphur dioxide, a source of acid rain, by about 2,800 metric tons a year, according to the company’s website.

Williams’ Canadian President David Chappell said the project will be a “very positive story for the oil sands in general” as the industry works to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

“You don’t hear about many projects that reduce emissions without government assistance,” he said.

Although he would not provide an estimated price tag, he said the end cost would be different from an original US$900 million figure the company provided last year.

Similar plant in service

The two facilities recover high-value ethane, propane, butane, propylene and other liquids from gases that the facilities would otherwise have burned as fuel, supplying cheaper natural gas to burn instead.

The project includes plans to ship liquids by a Williams pipeline to its expanded Redwater plant near Edmonton where it will be purified and turned into a variety of products, including propane for a plant Williams plans to build to manufacture polypropylene, a form of plastic.

A final decision on whether to add this phase will be made later in 2016.

Williams is part of an industry and labor group that was established in March as the non-profit Resource Diversification Council to seek financing for refinery and petrochemical development in Alberta - a major objective of the provincial government.

Chappell said the new plant will be an important step in the process of developing value-added projects.

- GARY PARK