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Alberta leads the way, launches CO2 pipeline after 11 year delay
Gary Park for Petroleum News
The Alberta Carbon Trunk Line, rated as a world-leading carbon capture project, is now fully operational after taking 11 years to negotiate a forest of regulatory reviews, soaring costs and a shuffling of investment partners.
First announced in 2009 when the Alberta government pumped C$495 million into the project and the Canadian government contributed C$63.2 million, the ACTL went through a series of stops and starts that included the oil price crash of 2014 and changes of government.
In the end, a consortium of companies was formed to own and operate the C$1.2 billion facility under Calgary-based Wolf Midstream.
CO2 from NWR Sturgeon Refinery It has a maximum capacity of 15 million metric tons a year of CO2, representing about 20% of oil sands emissions.
The ACTL will carry CO2 from the NWR Sturgeon Refinery, which processes oil sands bitumen and itself only started operations earlier this spring, and a fertilizer plant, both near Edmonton.
The line terminates at a storage reservoir near Red Deer, in central Alberta, with the CO2 being used for enhanced oil recovery which could extend the operating life of an Enhance oil field by 20 to 30 years, said company chief executive officer Kevin Jabusch.
“It has been a long time coming and is probably sweeter as a result,” said Jabusch.
“We went through as few cycles ... economic cycles, a couple of political cycles. It survived all those and we pulled together a group and a couple of partners and got it fully finance in the fall of 2018,” he said.
Designed to capture CO2 NWR Sturgeon President Kerry Margetts said his refinery was one of the first in the world that was designed “from the original concept to capture CO2. (The ACTL) fulfills our objective of being a very low carbon CO2 emission refinery, which is really the refinery of the future.”
Jeff Pearson, president of Wolf’s carbon business unit, said that by permanently capturing and storing the CO2 the ACTL would effectively remove the equivalent emissions from 339,000 cars.
He said the pipeline “is an industrial solution for a big problem and I think it is just the beginning.”
Wolf will now look for “more opportunities to get more CO2 and grow the system,” he said.
Another large carbon capture project is Shell Canada’s Energy Quest at the Scotford bitumen upgrader 40 miles east of Edmonton. It carries a price tag of C$1.35 billion but has yet to receive a final investment decision.
Jabusch said he hopes others around the world will take note of what ACTL is going and give Alberta recognition as “a leader in decarbonizing both energy and other businesses.”
Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage said Alberta has again demonstrated “game-changing innovation that strengthens our reputation as a responsible energy producer.”
- GARY PARK
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