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