Local news delivered daily to your email inbox. Subscribe for FREE to the rdnewsNOW newsletter.
(Enhance Energy)
Alberta Carbon Trunk Line-Connected

Enhance Energy announces Origins Project, a carbon sequestration hub in central Alberta

Jan 22, 2022 | 11:23 AM

Enhance Energy, operator of Alberta’s largest Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS) initiative and founding partner of the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line (ACTL) Project, has plans for a new world-scale carbon sequestration project in central Alberta.

Company officials say the proposed project would enable meaningful emissions reductions for industrial emitters through permanent sequestration of captured CO2 before it enters the atmosphere. As the owner and operator of a 1.5 million tonnes per year Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) sequestration operation in Clive, AB, Enhance officials say the company has the experience and expertise to successfully develop and operate this initiative.

During a virtual presentation hosted by Central Alberta Economic Partnership (CAEP) this week, Enhance officials noted the Origins Project is envisioned as an open access CO2 sequestration hub, helping move Alberta toward net zero emissions by 2050.

Origins would be ACTL-connected and also located in central Alberta. An exact location, however, is yet to be determined.

Enhance is proposing Origins as part of the Government of Alberta’s competitive carbon hub selection process and aims to continue being a key part of the solution to the province’s environmental and economic goals, creating future fit jobs leveraging the skills and expertise of Albertans.

In collaboration with companies across Alberta who will have access to this project, Enhance officials estimate up to 20 million tonnes per year of CO2 can be captured, transported, and permanently sequestered. With the global scale of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) today said to be 40 million tonnes per year, officials say this sequestration complex would be one of the largest CCS initiatives worldwide.

“This new venture has the potential to attract new low carbon industries to Alberta while providing a safe, secure, and certain solution for emissions mitigation for existing industries. At full scale, this project is the equivalent of taking every vehicle in Alberta off the roads. That would be a monumental accomplishment,” says Kevin Jabusch, CEO of Enhance Energy.

Company officials say Origins progresses the vision that the provincial and federal governments had in supporting the building of the ACTL, and would ensure that foundational carbon management infrastructure is utilized to its full capacity. They further note, the project would be positioned to manage CO2 from hard-to-abate industries, like cement, power generation and petrochemicals that exist along Alberta’s Highway 2 Corridor — including the Alberta Industrial Heartland, but also from existing large emissions sources in central and southern Alberta.

Subject to the timing of award of carbon sequestration rights regulatory approvals, and sequestration capacity demand, the proposed project is hoped to be in service as early as 2024.

“Central Alberta is already home to a successful CCUS facility with Enhance and we are excited at the opportunity to see this meaningful work expand in our region,” says James Carpenter, Chair, Board of Directors at Central Alberta Economic Partnership. “For over a decade, we have worked with Enhance and watched them demonstrate their competence, diligence and community-minded approach with the ACTL project and their CO2 sequestration facility in Lacombe County. Utilized to its full potential, a project like this will create jobs and economic activity, bringing greater prosperity to CAEP communities across central Alberta.”