Enhance looks for Heartland's CO2
Fledgling company first out of the chute with a carbon-capture pipeline
Dave Cooper
The Edmonton Journal
Thursday, November 06, 2008
EDMONTON - With just one long-term supply contract in hand, Enhance Energy says it's still full speed ahead for Alberta's first carbon dioxide pipeline.
"We are building for the future, and there will be a lot of CO2 in the Industrial Heartland," president Susan Cole said Wednesday, on her way to an open house in Fort Saskatchewan.
The event, one of several along the route of the 240-kilometre route, is part of the regulatory requirement for building a pipeline.
Enhance will construct a drying and compression facility at Agrium's Redwater complex to bring its almost pure carbon dioxide gas up to pipeline specifications. The fertilizer firm is Alberta's largest producer of pure carbon dioxide.
Bitumen upgraders can be modified to capture much of their CO2. But coal-fired power plants, the largest emitters of the greenhouse gas, face a major challenge to accomplish this.
Cole said Agrium will contribute about one-third to the pipeline's initial 5,000-tonne-per-day capacity.
"As the number of sources increase, we will stage it up to 25,000 tonnes per day or more by adding pumping stations," she said.
Enhance also has a contract with the North West Upgrader, but that project is on hold.
Shell recently announced it will eventually inject CO2 from its Scotford upgrader deep in a local underground reservoir. That CO2 could also be shipped out on the Enhance pipeline.
The proposed 16-inch, (40 cm) diameter pipeline will travel east from the Redwater area around Elk Island National Park and then south through Tofield and Hay Lakes to the Clive area east of Lacombe, where it will be used for enhanced oil recovery in depleted fields in the area.
Construction of the pump station could begin as early as late 2009, with the pipeline installed in mid-2010.
Cole said the line is being routed far east because the area west of the national park and closer to Edmonton is "congested" with other pipelines and higher population density.
"It's also an environmental choice. We didn't want to go through the park," she said.
Like other petroleum and energy firms, Enhance will apply for a share of the provincial $2-billion carbon capture fund.
"We hope to work with the government on this project. It would certainly help us," she said.
Because CO2 must be kept under pressure so it will flow like water, the high-vapour pressure line will be built to the same standards as a natural gas line. The difference is CO2 is non-flammable.
dcooper@thejournal.canwest.com
