CALGARY — The proponent of a project to use carbon dioxide captured at two industrial plants in Alberta to boost oil well production has enlisted a pipeline partner to build, own and operate most of the infrastructure.
Calgary-based Enhance Energy Inc. and Wolf Midstream say they will work together on the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line project designed to capture CO2 from the Sturgeon Refinery and Nutrien Ltd.’s Redwater fertilizer plant, both located northeast of Edmonton.
The construction of the CO2 capture equipment and a 240-kilometre pipeline is to be funded by Wolf, in part through investments made by its financial partner, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, of up to $305 million.
Enhance is to own and operate an oilfield near Clive, Alta., into which the CO2 will be injected to keep it out of the atmosphere, where it is linked to global warming, and permit greater recoveries of crude.
The partners say the project can also draw on government funding originally promised in 2009, including $63 million from Ottawa and $223 million in construction funding from Alberta.
CO2 flow rates are expected to start at 800 tonnes per day in the fourth quarter of 2019 and increase to 4,400 tonnes per day by the end of 2019.
“Carbon capture and storage is already established as a viable emission reduction strategy for Alberta industries and we believe it has great potential to become much more widely applied,” said Wolf CEO Gord Salahor in a news release.
“The ACTL is a desirable infrastructure asset for Wolf because it represents the core of an expandable network capable of facilitating many carbon mitigation options for emitters over the long term.”
Earlier this year, Wolf bought an oil storage terminal and the half of the northern Alberta Access Pipeline it didn’t already own for $1.6 billion from MEG Energy Corp.
The Canadian Press