Petrochemical upgrading program to get $1 billion more

EDMONTON Premier Rachel Notley is injecting $1 billion into a petrochemical upgrading program as energy producers struggle with a troubling oil price differential.

“We’re facing pretty stiff headwinds right now with what’s going on with the differential,” Notley told reporters Tuesday, following a speech at a Rural Municipalities of Alberta convention in Edmonton.

In her speech, she announced additional investment for a petrochemical upgrading program that launched in 2016 and includes royalty credits, grants and loan guarantees. The second phase of the program announced in March now totals $2.1 billion.

Initially the program doled out $500 million in royalty credits to two pipeline companies to build propane-processing plants.

Tuesday ’s announcement means a further $1 billion in funding on top of the $1.1 billion set aside in the March budget.

“That first plan in 2016 generated the project that’s happening just outside of Edmonton now … it’s the first plant of its kind in Canada to start creating plastics out of natural gas,” Notley said, referencing the Inter Pipeline’s petrochemical complex. “It’s something that is booming in the U.S. that we haven’t been successful with in Canada.”

Alberta has received 23 applications for petrochemical upgrading projects, according to the province.