Oilsands companies to reach emissions cap in 2026
CALGARY — Oilsands companies will run up against Alberta’s NDP government’s carbon emissions limit of 100 megatonnes in 2026, according to a new report, unless industry players can develop new technologies to dramatically lower their emissions intensity.
In a study, the Canadian Energy Research Institute forecast continued growth in oilsands production until at least 2036 and, as a result, continued growth in emissions from the oilsands over that period.
CERI vice-president of research Dinara Millington, the study’s author, said that without “quite significant improvements” in new extraction technologies, oilsands companies will hit the provincial government’s emissions cap in 10 years.
The report shows cumulative carbon emissions from all oilsands projects rising from 67 megatonnes in 2016 to 99 megatonnes in 2026. Without technological improvements, the industry is projected to emit 119 megatonnes in 2036.
However, Millington said, oilsands companies have been working on new technologies that could allow the industry to grow its production all the way to 2036 without reaching the emissions limit imposed by Alberta’s government. “We can still grow without hitting that cap,” she said.
Alberta’s NDP government announced a hard cap on cumulative oilsands emissions as part of a package of climate policies in 2015. The controversial announcement was made with the support of Suncor Energy Inc., Cenovus Energy Inc., Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. and Shell Canada.
Those and other oilsands companies, including Imperial Oil Ltd. and MEG Energy Corp., have been piloting technologies that would use solvents — chemicals such as propane, pentane and butane — to draw more oil while emitting less carbon from their steam-based operations.
Imperial has filed two project applications with the Alberta Energy Regulator that would use what the company calls “solvent-assisted, steam-assisted gravity drainage” in the oilsands.
Millington said CERI is working on another study to determine when oilsands companies would reach the 100 megatonne cap, assuming that future oilsands projects are built using the new technology.
“The technologies discussed in our forthcoming study have the potential to delay the time oilsands emissions would approach the 100 megatonne cap by several decades,” she said.