Shell to Construct World's First Oil Sands Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Project
Shell to Construct World's First Oil Sands Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Project
AsiaNet 50539
CALGARY, Alberta, Sept. 5/PRN=KYODO JBN/ --
Shell today announced that it will go ahead with the first carbon capture
and storage (CCS) project for an oil sands operation in Canada. The Quest
project will be built on behalf of the Athabasca Oil Sands Project joint
venture owners (Shell, Chevron and Marathon Oil[1]) and with support from the
Governments of Canada and Alberta.
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CCS is critical to meeting the huge projected increase in global energy
demand while reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, explained Peter Voser,
Chief Executive Officer of Royal Dutch Shell plc. "If you want to achieve
climate change goals, CCS has to be part of the solution. We are helping to
advance CCS technology on a number of fronts around the world, but Quest will
be our flagship project."
Alberta's oil sands are a secure, reliable source of energy and an economic
engine which drives employment, training and business development across Canada
and beyond. "We will need all sources of energy to meet world demand in the
coming decades," Voser noted. "Lower CO2 energy sources will grow, but even by
2050 at least 65 per cent of our energy will still come from fossil fuels. So
CCS will be important to manage climate impacts."
The Athabasca Oil Sands project produces bitumen, which is piped to Shell's
Scotford Upgrader near Edmonton, Alberta. From late 2015, Quest will capture
and store deep underground more than one million tonnes a year of CO2 produced
in bitumen processing. Quest will reduce direct emissions from the Scotford
Upgrader by up to 35 per cent - the equivalent of taking 175,000 North American
cars off the road annually.
"Quest is another example of how we are using technology and innovation to
improve the environmental performance of our oil sands operations," said Shell
Executive Vice President of Heavy Oil, John Abbott. "The opportunity Quest
provides to reduce emissions from our upgrading activities is an important
achievement in itself, but the project's technical and strategic value reaches
beyond the emissions it will capture."
"Quest is important because it is a fully integrated project that will
demonstrate existing capture, transportation, injection and storage
technologies working together for the safe and permanent storage of CO2. The
knowledge it provides will help to enable much wider and more cost-effective
application of CCS through the energy industry and other sectors in years to
come."
Both the Canadian federal and Albertan provincial governments have
identified CCS as an important technology in their strategies to reduce CO2
emissions. The Alberta government will invest $745 million in Quest from a
$2-billion fund to support CCS, while the Government of Canada will invest $120
million through its Clean Energy Fund.
"We will continue to invest in innovative clean energy technologies such as
the Shell Quest project to help support high-quality jobs and responsible
development of Canada's energy resources," said the Honourable Joe Oliver,
Minister of Natural Resources. "Carbon capture and storage has the potential to
help us balance our need for energy with our need to protect the environment."
"Today's announcement reaffirms Alberta's position as a global leader in
carbon capture and storage," said Energy Minister Ken Hughes. "Technologies
like CCS will play an instrumental role in helping to lower greenhouse gas
intensity from the oil sands and demonstrate to the world Alberta's commitment
to responsible energy development."
The International Energy Agency (IEA) calls CCS "a crucial part of
worldwide efforts to limit global warming" and estimates that it could deliver
about one-fifth of necessary worldwide reductions in greenhouse gases by 2050.
Shell is also working with governments and experts to help the development of
CCS in other countries, including projects in Norway and Australia.
Quest is the world's first commercial-scale CCS project to tackle carbon
emissions in the oil sands, and the first CCS project in which Shell will hold
majority ownership and act as designer, builder and operator. It will also form
the core of Shell's CCS research programme and help develop Shell's CO2 capture
technology.
Shell has received the necessary federal and provincial regulatory
approvals for Quest. Construction has begun and will employ an average of about
400 skilled trades workers over roughly 30 months, peaking at about 700.
More about Quest:
The Quest CCS project will capture more than one million tonnes per year of
CO2 from the Scotford Upgrader located near Edmonton, Alberta and transport it
up by an 80 km underground pipeline to a storage site north of the Scotford
site. Here, it will inject it more than two kilometres underground into a
porous rock formation called the Basal Cambrian Sands (BCS), which is located
beneath layers of impermeable rock. Sophisticated monitoring technologies will
ensure the CO2 is permanently stored. In 2011, Quest received the world's first
certificate of fitness for its storage development plan from Det Norske
Veritas (DNV), an international risk management firm. DNV assembled a panel of
seven CCS experts from academia and research institutions to perform the review
over a two-week period.
To improve efficiency, up to 50 per cent of project work will be done
offsite at a construction yard yet to be selected. Shell will use third-party
construction facilities in Edmonton, helping the continuing development of key
construction capacity in the province. Large pre-assembled modules will then be
delivered to the Shell site for installation.
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1. The Athabasca Oil Sands Project, with 255,000 barrels per day of mining
and upgrading capacity, is a joint venture among Shell Canada Energy (60 per
cent), Chevron Canada Limited (20 per cent) and Marathon Oil Canada Corporation
(20 per cent).
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SOURCE: Royal Dutch Shell plc
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