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Oil Sands

Alberta’s oil sands expansion could create an ideal place to innovate and develop Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) in Canada. CCS can and will work for oil sands applications.

CCS will first be applied at upgraders, since they are more concentrated sources of CO2, making capture more efficient. Upgraders process the bitumen produced from oil sands and convert it into synthetic crude oil. In fact, one of the initial CCS projects currently under development in Canada is operated by Shell and is part of their oil sands operations.

As CCS is deployed around the world, technology will improve and reduce CO2 capture costs. This will allow for the next phase of oil sands CO2 capture to occur at Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) in situ production facilities.  The Carbon Capture Project has embarked on a demonstration project to test the viability of oxyfuel combustion capture for in situ applications.

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Low Carbon Fuel Standard

Of particular concern to the oil sands is the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) proposed by California and now the subject of discussions in 12 states in the U.S. It has the potential to create an added price differential on the carbon-intensive production from Alberta’s oil sands. Unless the oil sands plan now for CCS they may be subject to costly America import regulations. CCS has the ability to reduce CO2 emissions from Canadian Oil Sands to a level comparable if not better than those of other export regions.