Canada’s Oil & Gas Producers to Evaluate Potential Carbon Storage Facility

On Wednesday, Canada’s biggest oil and gas producers announced they had reached a settlement with the government of Alberta that allows them to evaluate the geology of an underground carbon storage facility as part of a strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

By 2030, the Pathways Alliance –which consists of 95% of Canada’s oil sand production– plans to have built a carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility in northern Alberta to collect and store emissions from fourteen oil sand operations.

Canada’s oil and gas sector is the country’s most polluting industry, making carbon capture and storage (CCS) a crucial component of the Pathways strategy to achieve zero net emissions by 2050. However, the development of such an expensive technology takes time, and pending Canadian initiatives require financial backing from the federal government to see them through.

By 2030, it is estimated that the CCS plan will cost a total of around C$16.5 billion. After the establishment of a CCS investment tax credit by the Canadian government last year, the oil industry has been pushing for further funding from both the federal and provincial governments.

After Wednesday’s announcement, the alliance will be able to begin a thorough examination of its proposed storage hub in the Cold Lake area, which will assist in the establishment of field development plans in support of the future application to the Alberta government.

“This agreement marks another significant milestone on the road to finalizing plans for our proposed CCS project in northeastern Alberta,” said Kendall Dilling, Pathways Alliance President.

No final decision on funding for the CCS project has been made by Pathways at this time. The coalition’s proposed carbon transportation pipeline and storage network will be the subject of a regulatory application in the alliance’s fourth fiscal quarter of 2023.

Original source material for this article taken from here