A new online tool is mapping Canada’s carbon capture story.

The Government of Alberta and Regina-based International CCS Knowledge Centre have launched an interactive map and research repository showcasing Canada’s experience with carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS). 

The platform is designed to help investors and policymakers make informed decisions about future projects, strengthening Alberta’s leadership in CCUS.

The map identifies nearly 60 proposed carbon capture, transportation and storage facilities in the province. 

“There is a big demand from people looking for CCS experience,” said Knowledge Centre CEO James Fann. 

With many of the leaders who built Western Canada’s CCS industry retiring — the first project, in Saskatchewan, began operating in 2000 — Fann said it’s important to ensure their expertise and research remain accessible.

“We learned it is really important to capture that information, that knowledge experience, while they are still engaged,” Fann said. 

“You can mix that human experience with what documentation is out there.”

Resources available on the new site include CCUS technology explainers, project economic tools and regulatory framework comparisons. 

The Knowledge Centre says looking at past and current projects can help future developers better tackle technical and economic challenges, share best practices and manage risks more effectively.

Fann said the team spent time engaging with stakeholders to determine the most effective resources to include on the site. 

“It was about a year of connecting with companies, one on one, and collecting all the information from around the world,” he said. 

“What would you like to see? What would help projects going forward? What would you be willing to share?”

There are around 20 resources on the site now, with a goal of 40 by the end of the year.

Alberta’s Ministry of Environment and Protected Areas said the new resource reflects the province’s growing CCUS sector.

“We have already sequestered 14 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent and are a model for jurisdictions around the world,” the Ministry’s office said in a statement.  

“By gathering insights from existing carbon capture projects and transforming them into practical tools and guidance, we’re helping industry move projects faster, protect jobs and lower emissions.”

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To the naked eye, it looks about as exciting as baking soda or table salt. 

But to the scientists in the University of Calgary chemistry lab who have spent more than a decade working on it, this white powder is nothing short of amazing. 

That’s because the material they invented is garnering global attention as a new solution to help address climate change.

Known as Calgary Framework-20 (CALF-20 for short), it has “an exceptional capacity to absorb carbon dioxide” and was recognized in connection with the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

A jar of CALF-20, a metal-organic framework (MOF) used in carbon capture. Photo courtesy UCalgary

“It’s basically a molecular sponge that can adsorb CO2 very efficiently,” said Dr. George Shimizu, a UCalgary chemistry professor who leads the research group that first developed CALF-20 in 2013.

The team has been refining its effectiveness ever since.

“CALF-20 is a very exciting compound to work on because it has been a great example of translating basic science into something that works to solve a problem in the real world,” Shimizu said.

Advancing CCS

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is not a new science in Alberta. Since 2015, operating projects in the province have removed 15 million tonnes of CO2 that would have otherwise been emitted to the atmosphere. 

Alberta has nearly 60 proposed facilities for new CCS networks including the Pathways oil sands project, according to the Regina-based International CCS Knowledge Centre. 

This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to three of Shimizu’s colleagues in Japan, Australia and the United States, for developing the earliest versions of materials like CALF-20 between 1989 and 2003.

Custom-built molecules

CALF-20 is in a class called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) — custom-built molecules that are particularly good at capturing and storing specific substances. 

MOFs are leading to new technologies for harvesting water from air in the desert, storing toxic gases, and capturing CO2 from industrial exhaust or directly from the atmosphere. 

CALF-20 is one of the few MOF compounds that has advanced to commercial use.

“There has been so much discussion about all the possible uses of MOFs, but there has been a lot of hype versus reality, and CALF-20 is the first to be proven stable and effective enough to be used at an industrial scale,” Shimizu said.

It has been licensed to companies capturing carbon across a range of industries, with the raw material now being produced by the tonne by chemical giant BASF.

CO2 pipeline at the Quest CCS project near Edmonton, Alta. Photo courtesy Shell Canada

Carbon capture filter gigafactory

Svante Inc. has demonstrated its CALF-20-based carbon capture system at a cement plant in British Columbia.

The company recently opened a “gigafactory” in Burnaby equipped to manufacture enough carbon capture and removal filters for up to 10 million tonnes of CO2 annually, equivalent to the emissions of more than 2.3 million cars.

The filters are designed to trap CO2 directly from industrial emissions and the atmosphere, the company says. 

Svante chief operating officer Richard Laliberté called the Nobel committee’s recognition “a profound validation” for the entire field of carbon capture and removal. 

CALF-20 expansion

Meanwhile, one of Shimizu’s former PhD students helped launch a spinoff company, Existent Sorbents, to further expand the applications of CALF-20.

Existent is working with oil sands producers, a major steel factory and a U.S.-based firm capturing emissions from other point sources, said CEO Adrien Côté.

“The first users of CALF-20 are leaders who took the risk of introducing new technology to industries that are shrewd about their top and bottom lines,” Côté said.

“It has been a long journey, but we are at the point where CALF-20 has proven to be resilient and able to survive in harsh real-world conditions, and we are excited to bring this made-in-Canada innovation to the world.”

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Innisfail, Alta. is set to host the world’s first test centre for technology that removes carbon dioxide directly from the air to fight climate change.

This June, Montreal-based Deep Sky completed construction of a $110-million carbon removal innovation and commercialization centre in the town about 120 kilometres north of Calgary.

It is a key piece of the company’s vision to build 100 large-scale facilities across Canada and become a pioneer in the emerging market for direct air capture (DAC) technology.

“As of this summer, we will begin not only carbon removal, which is actually sucking it out of the air through these very powerful fans, but also liquefying it and then putting it underground for storage,” Deep Sky CEO Alex Petre told CTV News. 

Work began in August 2024 on the project known as Deep Sky Alpha, which aims to begin testing up to 10 different DAC technologies in real-world conditions. It is expected to be up and running this August. 

The Government of Alberta is investing $5 million in the facility through Emissions Reduction Alberta. 

The Deep Sky Alpha direct air capture test facility in Innisfail, Alta. Photo courtesy Deep Sky

Deep Sky’s facility will capture up to 3,000 tons of CO2 per year over the next 10 years, with room for future expansion. 

Captured CO2 will be transported by tanker trucks about 200 kilometres north to Sturgeon County where it will be injected more than two kilometres below the surface into the Meadowbrook Carbon Storage Hub. 

Operated by Bison Low Carbon Ventures, the project is the first approved under Alberta’s open-access carbon sequestration hub initiative and is expected to begin operations before year-end.

“We’re going to line up these eight units side by side and run them to see how they operate in the summer and in the cold of winter,” said Damien Steel, former Deep Sky CEO who continues to serve as a company advisor.

“We’ll be tracking everything to see how all these best-in-class technologies compare – what are their strengths and weaknesses – so that ultimately we can choose the best solutions to scale up for the major commercialization of carbon removal projects that are needed.” 

Unlike typical carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects that scrub CO2 from the exhaust of heavy industrial facilities such as power plants, refineries, cement plants or steel mills, DAC utilizes different technology to remove much lower concentrations of CO2 directly from the atmosphere. 

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), there are 27 DAC plants operating worldwide, capturing almost 10,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. In order to reach net zero emissions by 2050, the IEA estimates DAC capacity must expand to more than 60 million tonnes per year by 2030.

Deep Sky selected Alberta for its test facility because of the province’s experience with CCS, including its advanced regulatory system for CO2 sequestration.

“To be successful at carbon removal you need three things: you need access to geologic storage, you need talent, and you need a reliable supply of renewable power to operate DAC facilities. Canada is blessed with these things, and Alberta especially has all of these attributes in spades,” Steel said.

Deep Sky Alpha is one of several clean tech projects underway in a five-acre industrial park in Innisfail as part of an economic diversification plan that was launched in 2022 to make the town a centre for energy innovation. 

A municipal solar farm and a power plant that burns garbage and will be equipped with CCS to eliminate emissions are also under development.

Deep Sky says that more than 110 jobs were created during the construction phase of its Innisfail project and it will employ 15 people for annual operations. 

Subsequent commercial plants it hopes to build across Canada will employ approximately 1,000 workers for construction and 150 for annual operations. 

Steel said he expects the DAC test facility will become a destination for those looking to advance CCS projects around the world, showcasing Canadian expertise in the process.

“My hope is that not only will we learn and improve carbon removal technology, but we will also put Canada on the map in terms of being a place where innovation can thrive and this industry can work,” he said. 

“It will be a place where corporate leaders, government officials and customers from around the world can come and see what direct air capture really is, how it works, and how Canada is the place to do it.”

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It’s a bright spring day on a stretch of rolling farmland just northeast of Red Deer. It’s quiet, but for the wind rushing through the grass and the soft crunch of gravel underfoot. 

The unassuming wellheads spaced widely across the landscape give little hint of the significance of what is happening underground.

In just five years, this site has locked away more than 6.5 million tonnes of CO₂ — equivalent to the annual emissions of about 1.5 million cars — stored nearly four CN Towers deep beneath the surface.

The CO₂ injection has not only reduced emissions but also breathed life into an oilfield that was heading for abandonment, generating jobs, economic activity and government revenue that would have otherwise been lost. 

This is Clive, the endpoint of one of Canada’s largest carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) projects. And it’s just getting started. 

Rooted in Alberta’s first oil boom

Clive’s history ties to Alberta’s first oil boom, with the field discovered in 1952 along the same geological trend as the legendary 1947 Leduc No. 1 gusher near Edmonton.

“The Clive field was discovered in the 1950s as really a follow-up to Leduc No. 1. This is, call it, Leduc No. 4,” said Chris Kupchenko, president of Enhance Energy, which now operates the Clive field. 

Over the last 70 years Clive has produced about 70 million barrels of the site’s 130 million barrels of original oil in place, leaving enough energy behind to fuel six million gasoline-powered vehicles for one year. 

“By the late 1990s and early 2000s, production had gone almost to zero,” said Candice Paton, Enhance’s vice-president of corporate affairs. 

“There was resource left in the reservoir, but it would have been uneconomic to recover it.” 

Facilities at the Clive project. Photo courtesy Enhance Energy

Gearing up for CO2

Calgary-based Enhance bought Clive in 2013 and kept it running despite high operating costs because of a major CO2 opportunity the company was developing on the horizon. 

In 2008, Enhance and North West Redwater Partnership had launched development of the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line (ACTL), one of the world’s largest CO2 transportation systems. 

Wolf Midstream joined the project in 2018 as the pipeline’s owner and operator. 

Completed in 2020, the groundbreaking $1.2 billion project — supported by the governments of Canada and Alberta — connects carbon captured at industrial sites near Edmonton to the Clive facility. 

“With CO2 we’re able to revitalize some of these fields, continue to produce some of the resource that was left behind and permanently store CO2 emissions,” Paton said.

Map of the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line courtesy of Wolf Midstream

An oversized pipeline on purpose

Each year, about 1.6 million tonnes of CO2 captured at the NWR Sturgeon Refinery and Nutrien Redwater fertilizer facility near Fort Saskatchewan travels down the trunk line to Clive. 

In a unique twist, that is only about 10 per cent of the pipeline’s available space. The project partners intentionally built it with room to grow.  

“We have a lot of excess capacity. The vision behind the pipe was, let’s remove barriers for the future,” Kupchenko said.

The Alberta government-supported goal was to expand CCS in the province, said James Fann, CEO of the Regina-based International CCS Knowledge Centre.

“They did it on purpose. The size of the infrastructure project creates the opportunity for other emitters to build capture projects along the way,” he said.

CO2 captured at the Sturgeon Refinery near Edmonton is transported by the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line to the Clive project. Photo courtesy North West Redwater Partnership

Extending the value of aging assets

Building more CCUS projects like Clive that incorporate enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is a model for extending the economic value of aging oil and gas fields in Alberta, Kupchenko said.

“EOR can be thought of as redeveloping real estate,” he said. 

“Take an inner-city lot with a 700-square-foot house on it. The bad thing is there’s a 100-year-old house that has to be torn down. But the great thing is there’s a road to it. There’s power to it, there’s a sewer connection, there’s water, there’s all the things.

“That’s what this is. We’re redeveloping a field that was discovered 70 years ago and has at least 30 more years of life.”

The 180 existing wellbores are also all assets, Kupchenko said.

“They may not all be producing oil or injecting CO2, but every one of them is used. They are our eyes into the reservoir.”

CO2 injection well at the Clive carbon capture, utilization and storage project. Photo for the Canadian Energy Centre

Alberta’s ‘beautiful’ CCUS geology

The existing wells are an important part of measurement, monitoring and verification (MMV) at Clive.   

The Alberta Energy Regulator requires CCUS projects to implement a comprehensive MMV program to assess storage performance and demonstrate the long-term safety and security of CO₂.

Katherine Romanak, a subsurface CCUS specialist at the University of Texas at Austin, said that her nearly 20 years of global research indicate the process is safe.

“There’s never been a leak of CO2 from a storage site,” she said. 

Alberta’s geology is particularly suitable for CCUS, with permanent storage potential estimated at more than 100 billion tonnes. 

“The geology is beautiful,” Romanak said. 

“It’s the thickest reservoir rocks you’ve ever seen. It’s really good injectivity, porosity and permeability, and the confining layers are crazy thick.” 

Suitability of global regions for CO2 storage. Courtesy Global CCS Institute

CO2-EOR gaining prominence 

The extra capacity on the ACTL pipeline offers a key opportunity to capitalize on storage potential while addressing aging oil and gas fields, according to the Alberta government’s Mature Asset Strategy, released earlier this year.

The report says expanding CCUS to EOR could attract investment, cut emissions and encourage producers to reinvest in existing properties — instead of abandoning them. 

However, this opportunity is limited by federal policy.

Ottawa’s CCUS Investment Tax Credit, which became available in June 2024, does not apply to EOR projects.

“Often people will equate EOR with a project that doesn’t store CO2 permanently,” Kupchenko said. 

“We like to always make sure that people understand that every ton of CO2 that enters this project is permanently sequestered. And we take great effort into storing that CO2.” 

The International Energy Forum — representing energy ministers from nearly 70 countries including Canada, the U.S., China, India, Norway, and Saudi Arabia — says CO₂-based EOR is gaining prominence as a carbon sequestration tool.

The technology can “transform a traditional oil recovery method into a key pillar of energy security and climate strategy,” according to a June 2025 IEF report.

Drone view of the Clive project. Photo courtesy Enhance Energy

Tapping into more opportunity

In Central Alberta, Enhance Energy is advancing a new permanent CO2 storage project called Origins that is designed to revitalize additional aging oil and gas fields while reducing emissions, using the ACTL pipeline. 

“Origins is a hub that’s going to enable larger scale EOR development,” Kupchenko said. 

“There’s at least 10 times more oil in place in this area.” 

Meanwhile, Wolf Midstream is extending the pipeline further into the Edmonton region to transport more CO2 captured from additional industrial facilities. 

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As the world’s energy requirements grow along with the need to reduce emissions, natural gas is no longer viewed as just a “bridge fuel” to the future. 

To keep energy reliable, secure and affordable, it is part of the destination. 

Starting this summer, Canada will deliver liquefied natural gas (LNG) globally on ocean vessels. 

LNG from Canada has a significant advantage—it has a smaller environmental footprint. But why?  

Leading Emissions Per Tonne

The global average emissions intensity of LNG is 0.35 per cent CO2 per tonne, according to Oxford Energy Institute. 

The LNG Canada project, set to ship its first cargo within weeks, is designed to have less than half the emissions intensity, at 0.15 per cent CO2 per tonne.  

Two projects that are under construction, Cedar LNG and Woodfibre LNG, are expected to have emissions intensity of 0.08 per cent and 0.04 per cent, respectively. 

There are four key reasons why Canada has the advantage.

1. Colder climate 

LNG is produced by supercooling natural gas to around minus 162 degrees Celsius. In colder climates, this process typically requires less equipment and effort, saving energy and reducing emissions, according to researchers from the Universities of Calgary and Toronto.  

For example, the average temperature in Kitimat, B.C. is much cooler (7°C) than the U.S. Gulf Coast (e.g.: 22°C in Corpus Christi, Texas).

2. Shorter shipping distances 

West Coast LNG projects in Canada are about 10 shipping days from Asia, compared to 20 days for shipments from the U.S. Gulf Coast that transit the Panama Canal, according to Natural Resources Canada.  

Proposed projects in Eastern Canada are 6 to 8 shipping days from Europe, the shortest distance of any North American LNG projects, NRCan says.  

Less time for LNG tankers in the water means less fuel use and lower emissions. 

3. Use of hydroelectricity 

More than half of Canada’s electricity comes from hydropower, helping reduce emissions from the country’s power grid, according to the Canada Energy Regulator.  

LNG projects are expected to connect to the grid to use hydroelectricity to fuel either part or all of their operations, particularly as the new Site C project in B.C. comes online and makes more hydropower available.   

4. Methane emissions reduction 

Canada’s oil and gas producers are achieving success in reducing methane emissions.  

In Alberta, producers met the target of reducing methane emissions by 45% below 2014 levels three years ahead of schedule in 2022—and surpassed it in 2023 with a 52% reduction.

In B.C., producers achieved a 51 per cent reduction over the same period. 

Regulators in Washington state affirmed this leadership when the permit for the Tacoma LNG project required sourcing natural gas specifically from British Columbia or Alberta. 

The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency determined that Canadian natural gas had a lower environmental impact than U.S. gas, noting in 2019 that methane emissions in the U.S. “may be as much as five times higher than those from Canada.” 

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Years of successful deliveries of Canadian propane to Japan raise confidence in the upcoming LNG trade between the two countries, says the chair of the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ).

Thanks to new export facilities in Prince Rupert, B.C., Canada went from zero propane exports to locations outside the United States in 2017 to nearly 34 million barrels of propane last year, according to the Canada Energy Regulator.

Canada is now Japan’s second-largest supplier of propane, according to World Bank data, where uses include automobiles, electric power generation and petrochemical feedstock.

“The long history of reliability in the supply of propane from Canada serves as the basis for the high expectation for Canadian LNG to Japan,” said IEEJ chair Tatsuya Terazawa.

“We see LNG from strategic partners like Canada as important to our energy security and our country’s efforts to significantly reduce our dependence on coal as well as to provide dispatchable power to deal with the intermittency of renewable power.”

During a recent trade mission to Japan, leaders from Canadian organizations Energy for a Secure Future and the First Nations LNG Alliance signed a memorandum of understanding with IEEJ to advance energy trade.

“There is a real commitment between the three organizations to work together to support Canadian LNG projects being successfully built and getting our product to markets in Asia that need energy security and low-emission energy options,” said Shannon Joseph, chair of Energy for a Secure Future.

“It is an extremely positive thing.”

The agreement comes at a pivotal moment with multiple Canadian LNG projects in various stages of construction and advancement, and 10 per cent tariffs on U.S. imports of Canadian energy now in place.

“Canada must act now and diversify our energy systems and begin the process of exporting to other countries who are in desperate need of our resources,” said First Nations LNG Alliance CEO Karen Ogen.

With the LNG Canada terminal expected to ship its first cargo of LNG in July and two smaller projects, Cedar LNG and Woodfibre LNG, under construction, Canadian LNG will soon be able to service an expected 60 per cent increase in world demand by 2040, mostly driven by Asia.

By 2040, Japanese LNG imports could rise as high as 74 megatonnes per year compared to 66 million tonnes in 2024, according to Japan’s Ministry of Trade, Economy and Industry.

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In a lab surrounded by modified kitchen appliances along with conventional equipment, Ian Gates leads a team at the University of Calgary helping energy companies commercialize new technologies to reduce emissions – for free.

Noted for innovations like transportable solid bitumen and carbonless flaring, many of Gates’ projects start in his garage or in the university lab using modified home gadgets.

“Instead of buying all this expensive lab equipment, we [found] we could modify microwave ovens – take them apart, modify them…even though we burned them out after a few weeks of use, it was much cheaper than buying the lab equipment,” said Gates, a professor in the Schulich School of Engineering who is also the university’s associate vice-president, research and innovation.

“That waffle maker? It has temperature limiters of about 170 degrees [centigrade}. Rip those out – we blasted that to 450.”

The entrepreneurial spirit of Gates’ lab led to a partnership with the Natural Gas Innovation Fund (NGIF) and Tourmaline Oil to create the NGIF Emissions Testing Centre (ETC).

The ETC provides third-party testing and validation of methane reduction technologies, first through simulations in Gates’ lab and then in the field at a Tourmaline gas processing plant in central Alberta.

Since its launch in 2021, the ETC has received approximately $11 million in funding from Natural Resources Canada, Western Economic Diversification Canada and Alberta Innovates to build and operationalize the ETC.

Alberta Environment and Protected Areas recently announced a $15 million dollar commitment over five years to support the program’s ongoing operations.

The ETC is part of the innovation ecosystem that helped Alberta’s oil and gas industry exceed the province’s methane emissions reduction target.

Producers beat the target – to reduce methane emissions by 45 per cent compared to 2014 levels by 2025 – three years early in 2022, then exceeded it in 2023 with a 52 per cent reduction.

So far, more than 70 participants have taken part in the ETC program and there is a growing waitlist.

“It’s really about taking all of our inventive skills that we have to support these companies because we want them to commercialize those technologies,” Gates said.

“We want to see them succeed. How do we get there? Well, we need better technology.”

Through the ETC, technologies can be tested in the lab and in the field under controlled conditions. Failures can be used to support improvements.

“Companies that are looking to validate their cleantech can come to a real-life operating centre and test their technology there,” explained Scott Volk, Tourmaline’s director of emissions and innovation.

“They have us to help validate the claims as to whether it did or didn’t work, and they can use that to build a new prototype that does what they hope it will do. The U of C can be an external validator.”

The program’s success has attracted attention outside of Alberta, Gates said.

“We’ve got U.S. companies now,” he said, calling it a recognition of Alberta as a leader in the development of this type of technology.

“The reputation of the ETC is growing. It’s this integration of lab testing, field testing and a bigger vision on things. It’s such a wonderful mix.”

Participating in the program also gives PhD and postdoctoral students an unusual insight into how industry works, explained Gates.

“They get hands-on [experience with industry]. There is no other research project where they get that.”

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It’s likely 2024 will go down in history as a turning point for Canadian energy, despite challenging headwinds from federal government policy.   

Here’s some of the good news.

10. New carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects to proceed 

Photo courtesy Shell Canada

In June, Shell announced it will proceed with the Polaris and Atlas CCS projects, expanding emissions reduction at the company’s Scotford energy and chemicals park near Edmonton.  

Polaris is designed to capture approximately 650,000 tonnes of CO2 per year, or the equivalent annual emissions of about 150,000 gasoline-powered cars. The CO2 will be transported by a 22-kilometre pipeline to the Atlas underground storage hub.   

The projects build on Shell’s experience at the Quest CCS project, also located at the Scotford complex. Since 2015, Quest has stored more than eight million tonnes of CO2. Polaris and Atlas are targeted for startup in 2028.    

Meanwhile, Entropy Inc. announced in July it will proceed with its Glacier Phase 2 CCS project. Located at the Glacier gas plant near Grande Prairie, the project is expected onstream in mid-2026 and will capture 160,000 tonnes of emissions per year.  

Since 2015, CCS operations in Alberta have safely stored roughly 14 million tonnes of CO2, or the equivalent emissions of more than three million cars. 

9. Canada’s U.S. oil exports reach new record 

Expanded export capacity at the Trans Mountain Westridge Terminal. Photo courtesy Trans Mountain Corporation

Canada’s exports of oil and petroleum products to the United States averaged a record 4.6 million barrels per day in the first nine months of 2024, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.  

Demand from Midwest states increased, along with the U.S. Gulf Coast, the world’s largest refining hub. Canadian sales to the U.S. West Coast also increased, enabled by the newly completed Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion. 

8. Alberta’s oil production never higher

A worker at Suncor Energy’s MacKay River oil sands project. CP Images photo

In early December, ATB Economics analyst Rob Roach reported that Alberta’s oil production has never been higher, averaging 3.9 million barrels per day in the first 10 months of the year.  

This is about 190,000 barrels per day higher than during the same period in 2023, enabled by the Trans Mountain expansion, Roach noted.  

7. Indigenous energy ownership spreads 

Communities of Wapiscanis Waseskwan Nipiy Limited Partnership in December 2023. Photo courtesy Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation

In September, the Bigstone Cree Nation became the latest Indigenous community to acquire an ownership stake in an Alberta energy project.  

Bigstone joined 12 other First Nations and Métis settlements in the Wapiscanis Waseskwan Nipiy Holding Limited Partnership, which holds 85 per cent ownership of Tamarack Valley Energy’s Clearwater midstream oil and gas assets.  

The Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation (AIOC) is backstopping the agreement with a total $195 million loan guarantee.   

In its five years of operations, the AIOC has supported more than 60 Indigenous communities taking ownership of energy projects, with loan guarantees valued at more than $725 million.  

6. Oil sands emissions intensity goes down 

Oil sands steam generators. Photo courtesy Cenovus Energy

A November report from S&P Global Commodity said that oil sands production growth is beginning to rise faster than emissions growth.  

While oil sands production in 2023 was nine per cent higher than in 2019, total emissions rose by just three per cent. 

“This is a notable, significant change in oil sands emissions,” said Kevin Birn, head of S&P Global’s Centre for Emissions Excellence. 

Average oil sands emissions per barrel, or so-called “emissions intensity” is now 28 per cent lower than it was in 2009. 

5. Oil and gas producers beat methane target, again 

Photo courtesy Tourmaline

Data released by the Alberta Energy Regulator in November 2024 confirmed that methane emissions from conventional oil and gas production in the province continue to go down, exceeding government targets. 

In 2022, producers reached the province’s target to reduce methane emissions by 45 per cent compared to 2014 levels by 2025 three years early.  

The new data shows that as of 2023, methane emissions have been reduced by 52 per cent.  

4. Cedar LNG gets the green light to proceed 

Haisla Nation Chief Councillor Crystal Smith and Pembina Pipeline Corporation CEO Scott Burrows announce the Cedar LNG positive final investment decision on June 25, 2024. Photo courtesy Cedar LNG

The world’s first Indigenous majority-owned liquefied natural gas (LNG) project is now under construction on the coast of Kitimat, B.C., following a positive final investment decision in June.  

Cedar LNG is a floating natural gas export terminal owned by the Haisla Nation and Pembina Pipeline Corporation. It will have capacity to produce 3.3 million tonnes of LNG per year for export overseas, primarily to meet growing demand in Asia.  

The $5.5-billion project will receive natural gas through the Coastal GasLink pipeline. Peak construction is expected in 2026, followed by startup in late 2028. 

3. Coastal GasLink Pipeline goes into service 

Workers celebrate completion of the Coastal GasLink Pipeline. Photo courtesy Coastal GasLink

The countdown is on to Canada’s first large-scale LNG exports, with the official startup of the $14.5-billion Coastal GasLink Pipeline in November.  

The 670-kilometre pipeline transports natural gas from near Dawson Creek, B.C. to the LNG Canada project at Kitimat, where it will be supercooled and transformed into LNG.  

LNG Canada will have capacity to export 14 million tonnes of LNG per year to overseas markets, primarily in Asia, where it is expected to help reduce emissions by displacing coal-fired power.  

The terminal’s owners – Shell, Petronas, PetroChina, Mitsubishi and Korea Gas Corporation – are ramping up natural gas production to record rates, according to RBN Energy. 

RBN analyst Martin King expects the first shipments to leave LNG Canada by early next year, setting up for commercial operations in mid-2025.  

2. Construction starts on $8.9 billion net zero petrochemical plant  

Dow’s manufacturing site in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. Photo courtesy Dow

In April, construction commenced near Edmonton on the world’s first plant designed to produce polyethylene — a widely used, recyclable plastic — with net zero scope 1 and 2 emissions. 

Dow Chemicals’ $8.9 billion Path2Zero project is an expansion of the company’s manufacturing site in Fort Saskatchewan. Using natural gas as a feedstock, it will incorporate CCS to reduce emissions.  

According to business development agency Edmonton Global, the project is spurring a boom in the region, with nearly 200 industrial projects worth about $96 billion now underway or nearing construction.  

Dow’s plant is scheduled for startup in 2027.  

1. Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion completed 

The “Golden Weld” marked mechanical completion of construction for the Trans Mountain Expansion Project on April 11, 2024. Photo courtesy Trans Mountain Corporation

The long-awaited $34-billion Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion officially went into service in May, in a game-changer for Canadian energy with ripple effects around the world.   

The 590,000 barrel-per-day expansion for the first time gives customers outside the United States access to large volumes of Canadian oil, with the benefits flowing to Canada’s economy.   

According to the Canada Energy Regulator, exports to non-U.S. locations more than doubled following the expansion startup, averaging 420,000 barrels per day compared to about 130,000 barrels per day in 2023.  

The value of Canadian oil exports to Asia has soared from effectively zero to a monthly average of $515 million between June and October, according to ATB Economics. 

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Canada’s largest oil sands companies continue to advance a major proposed carbon capture and storage (CCS) network in northeast Alberta, including filing regulatory applications, conducting engineering and design, doing environmental surveys and consulting with local communities.   

Members of the Pathways Alliance – a group of six companies representing 95 per cent of oil sands production – are also now closer to ordering the steel for their proposed CO2 pipeline.   

“We have gone out to potential pipe suppliers and asked them to give us proposals on costs and timing because we do see this as a critical path going forward,” Imperial Oil CEO Brad Corson told analysts on November 1.  

He said the next big milestone is for the Pathways companies to reach an agreement with the federal and provincial governments on an economic framework to proceed.  

“Once we have the right economic framework in place, then we will be in a position to go order the line pipe that we need for this 400-kilometre pipeline.” 

Pathways – which also includes Suncor Energy, Canadian Natural Resources, Cenovus Energy, MEG Energy and ConocoPhillips Canada – is proposing to build the $16.5 billion project to capture  emissions from oil sands facilities and transport them to an underground storage hub. 

The project was first announced in 2022 but Pathways had not provided recent public updates. The organization had stopped advertising and even briefly shut down its website during the summer in wake of the federal government’s amendments to the Competition Act in June.  

Those changes include explicit provisions on the need to produce “adequate and proper testing” to substantiate environmental benefit claims. Critics say the provisions could lead to frivolous lawsuits and could or even scuttle the very projects that Canada is relying on to slash greenhouse gas emissions.  

In early December, the Alberta Enterprise Group (AEG) and the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association jointly filed a constitutional challenge against the federal government over the new “greenwashing” rules, which they say unreasonably restrict free speech. 

“These regulations pre-emptively ban even truthful, reasonable and defensible discussion unless businesses can meet a government-imposed standard of what is the truth,” said AEG president Catherine Brownlee. 

Pathways has since restored its website, and president Kendall Dilling said the organization and its member companies continue working directly with governments and communities along the corridors of the proposed CCS project. 

Canadian Natural Resources began filing the regulatory applications to the Alberta Energy Regulator on behalf of Pathways earlier in the year. The company has so far submitted 47 pipeline agreement applications along with conservation and reclamation plans in seeking approvals for the CO2 transportation network. 

Pathways has also continued consultation and engagement activities with local communities and Indigenous groups near its pipeline corridors and storage hubs. 

“Engagement is ongoing with local communities, Indigenous groups and landowners, as well as a consultation process with Indigenous groups in accordance with Aboriginal Consultation Office requirements,” Dilling says.  

An environmental field program that began in 2021 continues to survey the network’s project areas. 

“Environmental field studies are ongoing and we are supporting Indigenous groups in completing traditional land use studies,” Dilling says.  

“Studies are supported by hundreds of heritage resource assessments, wetland classifications, soil assessments, aquatic habitat evaluations and other environmental activities.” 

In addition to working with governments and communities, Pathways expects front-end engineering and design on the proposed 400-kilometre-plus main transportation line and more than 250 kilometres of connecting pipelines to be complete by the end of this year.  

Pathways has also drilled two test wells in the proposed storage hub and plans to drill another two or three evaluation wells in the final quarter of 2024. 

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The world’s leading producer of semiconductor chips wants access to Canadian energy as demand for artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly advances.  

Specifically, Canadian liquefied natural gas (LNG).  

The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) produces at least 90 per cent of advanced chips in the global market, powering tech giants like Apple and Nvidia.  

Taiwanese companies together produce more than 60 per cent of chips used around the world. 

That takes a lot of electricity – so much that TSMC alone is on track to consume nearly one-quarter of Taiwan’s energy demand by 2030, according to S&P Global. 

“We are coming to the age of AI, and that is consuming more electricity demand than before,” said Harry Tseng, Taiwan’s representative in Canada, in a webcast hosted by Energy for a Secure Future. 

According to Taiwan’s Energy Administration, today coal (42 per cent), natural gas (40 per cent), renewables (9.5 per cent) and nuclear (6.3 per cent), primarily supply the country’s electricity.  

The government is working to phase out both nuclear energy and coal-fired power.  

“We are trying to diversify the sources of power supply. We are looking at Canada and hoping that your natural gas, LNG, can help us,” Tseng said. 

Canada is inches away from its first large-scale LNG exports, expected mainly to travel to Asia.  

The Coastal GasLink pipeline connecting LNG Canada is now officially in commercial service, and the terminal’s owners are ramping up natural gas production to record rates, according to RBN Energy. 

RBN analyst Martin King expects the first shipments to leave LNG Canada by early next year, setting up for commercial operations in mid-2025.  

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