Why aren’t the oilsands companies planning on using CO2 for enhanced oil recovery?

By Brian Zinchuk

LLOYDMINSTER – The massive proposed $16 billion Pathways Alliance project is intended to capture carbon dioxide from the six largest oilsands operation in the Fort McMurray area and pipeline it down to the Cold Lake area for geologic storage. But there’s a major missing component to the plan – that massive amount of CO2 will not be used for enhanced oil recovery.

CO2 has been used for enhanced oil recovery schemes in the Edam area of Saskatchewan dating back as far as 2008, improving heavy oil recovery there. CO2 used in the Weyburn Unit has dramatically expanded production of what would otherwise be a depleted oilfield, increasing recovery factors and extending the life of the field by several decades.

And perhaps most significantly, the company that originally developed that CO2 flood at Weyburn, Cenovus and its predecessor companies Encana and PanCanadian, is now the predominant player in northwest Saskatchewan’s heavy oil play. And Cenovus has inherited Husky’s CO2 project in the Edam area. Cenovus is also a participant in the Pathways Alliance.

So why just pump that CO2 into the ground, when it could be used to dramatic impact in heavy oil recovery, not just in Saskatchewan, but possibly Alberta too?

In their press conference at the Lloydminster Heavy Oil Show on Sept. 11, Pipeline Online asked Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith about that. (For the record, CBC Alberta asked about hockey tickets for cabinet members and City News asked about a train line in Calgary, while at an oil show in Lloydminster. But at least City did ask about pipelines beforehand.)

Pipeline Online: The Pathways Alliance plans on bringing CO2 down from Fort McMurray, down into the Cold Lake area. Saskatchewan has been doing CO2 enhanced oil recovery at Weyburn since 2000. We’ve done it for 24 years. We’ve also been doing it around Edam area since at least 2008 with Husky having done that. Why aren’t we using that CO2 for enhanced oil recovery instead of just geological storage?

Premier Danielle Smith: Well, because the federal government won’t allow it. Under the federal government carbon capture credit, they’ve specifically excluded enhanced oil recovery.

Now we haven’t. We brought through a credit that allows for it to be used for enhanced oil recovery, and we’ll continue talking with the federal government to try to get them to be reasonable about it.

But I think you’re quite right. The fact that they have, the industry has already found a use for CO2 that has a productive value to it, and gives the ability to enhance production and have a revenue stream associated with it. That’s the kind of thing that you’re looking at being able to see more of.

Saskatchewan is ahead of us. I’ll let the premier talk about what they’ve managed to do. But we have our Shell Quest Project, and we also have our carbon trunk line, both of which combined, have managed to sequester safely 11 and a half million barrels of CO2 and will continue to sequester the rate of two to three million million tons for the foreseeable future.

So I would say that this is one of the ways in which we could use CO two to be able to not only reduce emissions, but also to continue to enhance the production in the industry.

Premier Scott Moe: And I would agree with everything premier Smith said.

And I would just say, you know, this is really quite a travesty, actually, that there isn’t at least a split rate on how you’re going to use the CO2. It makes our nation and the industries that are the players that are operating in our oil and gas industry in Canada, uncompetitive with just those on the south side of the 49th parallel in the US, where they have the 45Q and the split rate program, of which we’re familiar with. Because, as Premier Smith said, and you did in your question, we have an active enhanced oil recovery field down in Weyburn-Midale area, where they’re utilizing not only the carbon off of our coal-fired Boundary Dam 3 plant, but that isn’t enough carbon for them to satisfy the carbon, the enhanced oil recovery opportunity that they have. So they’re also purchasing carbon dioxide, American carbon dioxide, from the gasification plant in North Dakota, built a pipeline up into Canada, and they’re sequestering not only our Canadian CO2, but American CO2 in that field.

And I would say that the companies that are involved in that are one, largely, is the only Net Zero oil company that’s operating in Canada, and likely, to my knowledge, in North America.

And so, this is a missed opportunity by the federal government by not at least addressing the benefits of enhanced oil recovery. And it concerns me that, you know, possibly there’s another policy outcome that they are trying to get to, as a federal government, I would say that that’s not the proper the competitive policy outcome for families that work in the oilfield, families in this part of the world. But it’s also not the proper policy outcome of transitioning out of oil and gas, which I fear is the federal government’s goal.

It’s not the right outcome for energy security in Canada, in North America, nor is it the right outcome for global citizens when we actually have the opportunity to have proper policy in place and provide even more sustainable and ethical oil and gas to people on Earth.

And I think that is the travesty of the entire situation, and it’s a missed opportunity. It’s one that might be corrected after the next federal election.”