Shell Canada considers second carbon capture project at Scotford Complex

Shell Canada is considering building a second carbon capture project at its Scotford Complex near Edmonton, in line with parent company Shell's target to become a net-zero emissions business by 2050.

Shell is proposing to build a large-scale carbon capture and storage project at Scotford – a key step in "transforming Scotford into one of five energy and chemical parks for Shell around the world, providing customers with lower-carbon fuels and products, such as hydrogen," the July 13 statement said.

The proposed Polaris CCS project, the largest in a series of low-carbon opportunities Shell is exploring at Scotford, would capture carbon dioxide (CO2) from the Shell-owned Scotford refinery and chemicals plant.

The Polaris CCS project follows the success of the Quest CCS facility at Scotford, which has captured and safely stored more than six million tons of CO2 in its six years of operation.

Mid-decade startup expected

The initial phase of the Polaris project is expected to start operations around the middle of the decade, subject to a final investment decision by Shell expected in 2023. Polaris would have storage capacity of about 300 million tons of CO2 over the life of the project.

The Shell Scotford Complex consists of a bitumen upgrader, oil refinery, chemicals plant and the Quest CCS facility.

The Scotford Upgrader processes 300,000 b/d of oil equivalent of diluted bitumen to create synthetic crude oil. The Scotford refinery process 100,000 b/d of the synthetic crude into gasoline, diesel, jet, propane and butane, which are piped and railed across Western Canada. The Shell Scotford Refinery also produces benzene that is used by the Shell Scotford Chemical Plant.

The initial phase of the Polaris CCS project would capture and store approximately 750,000 mt/y of CO2 from the Scotford refinery and chemicals plant. It would reduce Shell's direct Scope 1 and indirect Scope 2 emissions by up to 40% from the refinery and by up to 30% from the chemicals plant.

The second phase of the Polaris CCS project involves the creation of a CO2 storage hub in Alberta to store emissions for third parties. Fully built, and contingent on acquiring pore space leases from the Province of Alberta, Polaris could serve as a CO2 storage hub for more than10 million mt/yr of CO2.

Once fully built, Polaris would contribute to the Edmonton region becoming Canada's first hydrogen hub. In the initial phase of Polaris, CO2 captured from the refinery's hydrogen plants would produce blue hydrogen for use in the refining process, with the potential for large-scale blue hydrogen production in future phases. Shell is also exploring the development of additional volumes of blue and green hydrogen at Scotford that leverage Alberta's abundance of natural gas and availability of renewable sources of power.