If you’ve ever been to an event at Rogers Place in Edmonton, you probably noticed the massive exposed concrete walls and columns that give the arena its unmistakable sense of strength. 

That strength is real — because like many buildings, bridges, roads, industrial projects and even sidewalks in Western Canada, Rogers Place is built from limestone quarried in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

Located about 350 kilometers west of Edmonton, the hamlet of Cadomin, Alta. has just 54 permanent residents, many of whom have mining in their blood. 

At the community’s edge is Heidelberg Materials Canada’s Cadomin Limestone Quarry. 

Connected by rail to the company’s Edmonton cement plant, each year the quarry delivers enough limestone to build 100 25-storey buildings or pave a 1,600-kilometre highway. 

“Our daily life in the western provinces – Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and northeast British Columbia – is built by concrete that is made from limestone supplied by the quarry,” said Joerg Nixdorf, Heidelberg Materials’ vice-president of cement operations. 

Heidelberg Materials is changing the way it mines limestone at the quarry, resulting in a reduced environmental footprint and continued safe access to decades of limestone reserves.

From the quarry to your door

Second only to water, concrete is the most widely used building material on Earth. Versions of it have shaped construction for thousands of years.

A familiar material all around us, concrete is made by mixing water with materials like sand and gravel and adding cement.

Cement, the “glue” that holds the concrete together, is a fine powder made from limestone – like that from the Heidelberg Materials Cadomin Quarry – along with other materials that contain silica, alumina and iron. 

Worldwide cement demand continues to rise. The International Energy Agency projects global cement demand will rise to 4.36 billion tonnes by 2050, about 10 per cent above 2024 levels. 

“It’s exciting to be a part of an industry that provides a material that literally builds everything,” said David Perkins, Heidelberg Materials’ senior vice-president of sustainability and public affairs. 

“You can create almost any kind of shape that you want, and then once you place that shape, it’s extremely resilient. It’s 100 per cent recyclable, it’s fire resistant and it’s extremely long-lasting.” 

Decades of operations

Originally known for coal mining, limestone mining is now Cadomin’s main industry.

Inland Cement Company (a predecessor to Heidelberg Materials) began quarrying limestone at this site in 1954.

For decades, this has been done by blasting, slowly moving equipment down the surface of the quarry.

The quarried limestone is conveyed through an inclined chute underground, where it is crushed and stored before being transferred to rail cars to be shipped to the Edmonton cement plant.

The quarry reached a point where operators faced a choice: relocate all the equipment and continue working on the surface — an expensive and highly impactful undertaking — or move the entire operation underground.

Moving underground

They chose the latter, and the limestone quarry is now in the process of being converted from a surface mine to the first fully underground limestone mine in Alberta. 

“The transition will help lower our environmental footprint by minimizing surface impacts, reducing the potential for dust and noise, and eliminating the need for large amounts of caprock removal, all while ensuring continued access to high-quality limestone,” said Brent Korobanik, permitting and community liaison for Heidelberg Materials in Edmonton.   

“From an economic perspective, it helps us out, but the big reason is sustainability.”

High-tech underground fleet

Moving underground allows Heidelberg Materials to retain existing infrastructure such as crushing equipment. It will also require a new mining fleet, supplied in part by Stockholm, Sweden–based Sandvik Group.

Sandvik says the fleet uses next-generation automation, and the project “could redefine expectations for how underground mining is executed in Canada.”

Heidelberg Materials expects the underground mine to be fully operational by spring 2027, when surface mining will be discontinued.

Sustainable Cement 

As Heidelberg Materials works to reduce its footprint at Cadomin, its Edmonton cement plant is advancing new sustainability strategies.

In 2025, the plant hit a major milestone, with 50 per cent of its fuel now coming from low-carbon alternative sources including processed municipal waste, demolition wood chips and tire fibre.

The project received provincial support, including a $2.4 million investment from Emissions Reduction Alberta.

The Edmonton cement plant also repurposes byproduct streams from other industries to replace traditional clay, ash, sand and iron in cement production.

This diverts waste from landfills and helps preserve Alberta’s natural resources.

The unaltered reproduction of this content is free of charge with attribution to the Canadian Energy Centre.

A major rail hub in Alberta’s Industrial Heartland will double in size to support a new carbon-neutral plastic production facility, turning the terminal into the largest of its kind in the country.

Cando Rail & Terminals will invest $200 million at its Sturgeon Terminal after securing Dow Chemical as an anchor tenant for its expanded terminal, which will support the planned $8.9 billion Path2Zero petrochemical complex being built in the region northeast of Edmonton.

“Half of the terminal expansion will be dedicated to the Dow project and handle the products produced at the Path2Zero complex,” says Steve Bromley, Cando’s chief commercial officer.

Steve Bromley, chief commercial officer with Cando Rail & Terminals.

By incorporating carbon capture and storage, the complex, which began construction this spring, is expected to be the world’s first to produce polyethylene with net zero scope 1 and 2 emissions.

The widely used plastic’s journey to global markets will begin by rail.

“Dow stores their polyethylene in covered railcars while waiting to sell it,” Bromley says.

“When buyers purchase it, we will build unit trains and those cars will go to the Port of Prince Rupert and eventually be shipped to their customers in Asia.”

A “unit train” is a single train where all the cars carry the same commodity to the same destination.

The expanded Cando terminal will have the capacity to prepare 12,000-foot unit trains – or trains that are more than three-and-a-half kilometers long.

Construction will start on the expansion in 2025 at a 320-acre site west of Cando’s existing terminal, which 20 industrial customers use to stage and store railcars as well as assemble unit trains.

Bromley, a former CP Rail executive who joined Cando in 2013, says the other half of the terminal’s capacity not used by the Dow facility will be sold to other major projects in the region.

The announcement is the latest in a series of investments for Cando to grow its operations in Alberta that will see the company spend more than $500 million by 2027.

The company, which is majority owned by the Alberta Investment Management Corporation previously spent $100 million to acquire a 1,700-railcar facility in Lethbridge along with $150 million to build its existing Sturgeon terminal.

Cando Rail’s existing Sturgeon Terminal near Edmonton, Alberta. Photo courtesy Cando Rail & Terminals

“Alberta is important to us – we have 300 active employees in this province and handle 900,000 railcars annually here,” Bromley says.

“But we are looking for opportunities across North America, both in Canada and the United States as well.”

Cando released the news of the Sturgeon Terminal expansion at the Alberta Industrial Heartland Association’s annual conference on Sept. 19.

“This is an investment in critical infrastructure that underpins additional growth in the region,” says Mark Plamondon, the association’s executive director.

The announcement came as the association marked its 25th anniversary at the event, which Plamondon saw as fitting.

“Dow’s Path2Zero came to the region because of the competitive advantages gained by clustering heavy industry. Competitive advantages are built from infrastructure that’s already here, such as the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line, which transports and stores carbon dioxide for industry,” he says.

“Having that level of integration can turn inputs into one operation into outputs for another. Competitive advantages for one become advantages for others. Cando’s investment will attract others just as Dow’s Path2Zero was a pull for additional investment.”

The unaltered reproduction of this content is free of charge with attribution to the Canadian Energy Centre.

The emergence of women in leading roles within Canada’s oil and gas industry is a testament to strong role models, says one of the winners of this year’s Young Women in Energy (YWE) awards.  

Jana McDonald, CEO of Guardyan Conservation Corp, said that the annual YWE awards program helps that momentum as a vital stage for women’s successes to be showcased. 

“I am very fortunate to be on this kind of wave of the industry as women make more space. Sometimes it’s not even about making space, it’s about the fact that you better get out of the way or women are going make their own way,” says 29-year-old Jana McDonald, CEO of Guardyan Conservation.  

“I think that YWE gives a phenomenal platform for women to show up and to be seen. They create a platform where there isn’t one.” 

Guardyan Conservation, which started around four years ago, is focused on the energy transformation taking place across Canada and around the world.  

Its goal is to help clients identify ways to help reduce their environmental impact while continuing to provide sustainable energy for the world through carbon markets. 

McDonald leads a team of environmental strategists who help companies assess their carbon footprint and provide carbon offsets to enable a profitable path toward emissions reduction goals. 

She is encouraged by the progress being made within the energy industry to make a meaningful impact on the environment and believes those innovations will help the sector thrive into the future. 

 “I think that we’re really privileged to be in the heart of oil and gas town here in Calgary… We’re seeing innovations and ideas that are brilliant. The energy sector will always be present and there will always be a degree of resource extraction and natural gas use,” she said. 

Being the CEO of a company now going through an investment growth raise of $15 million can have its challenges. That’s why having a whip-smart second in command and a solid team helps bring everything together. 

Having Kaila Stepanic by her side as co-founder and president has helped Guardyan grow from a scrappy little start up to a multimillion-dollar firm, McDonald said, noting her expertise in project management has helped the company aim high while setting realistic goals. 

“Guardyan really became Guardyan when Kaila came on…She was my first hire” said McDonald about Guardyan’s president.  

“She brings so much leadership and steadiness to this company” 

One of McDonald’s proudest achievements is building the team that has helped realize Guardyan’s potential. 

“It’s a silly thing but getting to have the first Guardyan Christmas party and collect all those people in that room and be so incredibly proud of this stone-cold group of weirdos. A misfit collection of experts who are changing the industry.” 

Overall, as a female leader in a STEM environment, McDonald sees the rise of women as leaders or in executive roles as significant progress toward positive representation. 

 “I think that we’re in a place where the greater community wants to see women and female-centric organizations.”. 

 The unaltered reproduction of this content is free of charge with attribution to Canadian Energy Centre Ltd.