An application to the Energy Resources Conservation Board for development of a carbon dioxide pipeline from the Fort Saskatchewan area to east-Central Alberta has been withdrawn.
However, a revised application should be submitted within a few months, said a spokesman for the Calgary-based company.
Enhance Energy wants to transport CO2 from industrial complexes in the Industrial Heartland region to mature oilfields further south.
Injecting CO2 into older wells has proven effective in stimulating oil production.
Enhance Energy applied to the ERCB earlier this year for approval to build and operate the 240-km pipeline.
Bob Curran, communications section leader with the ERCB, said in July that several objections were filed in response. Last week, Curran confirmed that Enhance Energy had withdrawn its application so that it could change the proposed pipeline’s route.
“It’s a very minor change,” said Enhance Energy spokesperson Shawn Howard on Tuesday.
Howard explained that the owner of industrial land along the designated route was among those objecting and a compromise could not be worked out.
So Enhance Energy decided to move the line to eliminate this potential conflict.
“It’ll probably mean that a new application will be filed in about two months or so,” said Howard.
“It really won’t impact the overall schedule of the project.”
Enhance Energy has indicated that it would like to commence construction next year and have the pipeline operational by the end of 2012.
Howard said he believed that the other objections related to the project have been or are in the process of being resolved.
‘The private landowners have been really, really good to work with and they’ve been supportive of what we’re doing.”
The ERCB could approve or reject the application, with or without a hearing. The decision on whether to hold a hearing will depend on the existence of outstanding objections, Curran said previously.
Slated to be called the Alberta Carbon Trunkline, the CO2 pipeline would end near Clive. An oilfield there, operated by Fairborne Energy Ltd., would be among the first to receive CO2.
Enhance Energy CEO Susan Cole has said the pipeline might be extended in the future.
The Alberta and Canadian governments have committed $495 million and $63.3 million respectively to the project.
hrichards@www.reddeeradvocate.com