Page 5 - NorthAmOil Week 08 2023

NorthAmOil COMMENTARY NorthAmOil

The Pathways
Alliance is focusing its
emissions-cutting efforts
on development of CCS
capacity.

Smith has now said the province will draft its year (tpy) of emissions cuts.
own plan for emissions reduction and energy The group is seeking CAD10.9bn ($8.0bn) in
development. A new advisory panel will com- public funds for the project, equating to 66% of
plete a report on Alberta’s energy future by June its cost. The federal government has allocated
30, 2023. CAD2.6bn ($1.9bn) in CCS tax credits over five
In mid-February, shortly before the sustain- years, and has said that Alberta should contrib-
able jobs plan as released, Alberta Minister of ute. But the Pathways Alliance and the province
Environment Sonya Savage told Reuters that the have called for more funding to come from
federal government’s proposed cap on oil and Ottawa. They have cited the tax credits for CCS
gas emissions was holding up talks on clean-en- in the recently passed US’ Inflation Reduction
ergy policies such as CCS. Act, saying that those incentives could attract
“We just need to get this emissions cap on a CCS investment that may otherwise have gone
better trajectory, and approach it in a different to Canada.
way, before we can really succeed in everything
else,” Savage told Reuters. What next? The Pathways
To proceed on CCS talks, the political rhetoric
Disagreement needs to be toned down in order to have mean- Alliance and the
The federal government said in 2022 that it would ingful discussions on funding, Cenovus Energy’s province have
impose an emissions cap on Canada’s oilpatch, CEO, Alex Pourbaix, told Reuters in late January.
without indicating what level the cap would be He was speaking for the Pathways Alliance. called for more
set at. A cap has not yet been announced. “It’s very hard to have meaningful discussions
However, the federal government has previ- with another party when you’re lobbing rocks at funding to come
ously said that the oil and gas industry can cut each other,” he said. “I would like to see the tem-
emissions by 31% below 2005 levels by 2030, perature turned down a little bit.” The Pathways from Ottawa.
which would be 42% lower than the level of Alliance is seeking a meeting with provincial
emissions in 2019. and federal leaders on CCS early this year.
The Pathways Alliance has proposed spend- The Pathways Alliance’s president, Kendall
ing CAD16.5bn ($12.3bn) before 2030 on the Dilling, has talked up CCS as being an integral
first phase of a proposed CCS project at Cold part of the plan to cut 30% of emissions by 2030.
Lake, northern Alberta, to form the core of its He also warned against the CCS project being
emissions reduction plans. held up by a slow regulatory approval process.
The alliance has yet to decide finally “We don’t have time to slip,” he told Reuters.
whether to proceed with the project, which “Canada’s track record on major infrastructure
would capture carbon dioxide (CO2) emis- development in the last decade has been abys-
sions from more than 20 oil sands facilities, mal. If we run into those same kind of troubles,
delivering an estimated 10mn tonnes per then 2030 will not be realised.”™

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