Quest CCS facility reaches major milestone: Captures and Stores four million tonnes of CO2

“Quest continues to show the world that carbon capture and storage (CCS) is working, its costs are coming down and that Canadians are leaders in CCS,” said Michael Crothers, Shell Canada President and Country Chair. “If Quest were to be built today, we estimate it would cost about 20-30% less to construct and operate. With our know-how, strong regulatory frameworks and ideal geology, Canada is uniquely positioned to capitalize on CCS technology.”

“Canada's oil and natural gas sector recognized the need to reduce CO₂ emissions and by leveraging technology and Canadian ingenuity, we are delivering impressive results,” said Tim McKay, President, Canadian Natural Resources Limited. “Quest’s achievement reinforces the significant opportunity that CCS projects have in the ongoing responsible development of Canada’s energy resources as part of a lower carbon emissions future.” 

Quest is operating at a lower cost thanks to a variety of factors including lower variable costs, capture reliability and reduced storage costs. To help encourage wider use of CCS technology around the world and bring down future costs of building CCS facilities, the designs, certain intellectual property and data from Quest are publicly available. This is due to Quest’s government funding arrangement, which is tied to knowledge sharing commitments to benefit future CCS projects.

“While Quest has benefited from significant government funding, the rapid learning curve and cost reductions are making CCS increasingly self-sufficient,” added Crothers. “Industry is looking at carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS), which could provide the ability for projects to be self-funded if they are able to generate revenues from CO₂. Currently, CCUS for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is the most commercially viable option to progress self-funded carbon capture.”

Since its start up in late 2015, the capture process at Quest has also worked better than anticipated, helping the facility exceed its target of capturing one million tonnes of CO₂ per year. The facility is also safely storing the CO₂ deep underground better than expected. The geological formation used for storage, which is prevalent across much of Western Canada, is demonstrating incredible capacity for CO₂ injection.

Quest is world’s first commercial-scale CCS facility applied to oil sands operations and is operated by Shell on behalf of the Athabasca Oil Sands Project (AOSP). The respective ownership interests of AOSP assets in aggregate, directly and indirectly, are 70% Canadian Natural Resources Limited and an affiliate, 20% Chevron Canada Limited and 10% Shell Canada Limited through certain subsidiaries.

Editor’s Notes:

• The Quest CCS facility captures and stores about one third of the CO₂ emissions from the Shell-operated Scotford Upgrader near Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, which turns oil sands bitumen into synthetic crude that can be refined into fuel and other products. The CO₂ is transported through a 65-kilometre pipeline and injected more than two kilometres underground below multiple layers of impermeable rock formations.
• Quest has stored the most CO₂ of any onshore CCS facility globally with dedicated geological storage. Quest has also captured more CO₂ in a calendar year than any other CCS facility with dedicated geological storage. Source: Global CCS Institute
• Quest has a robust measurement, monitoring and verification program verified by a third party (Det Norske Veritas (DNV)) to ensure the CO₂ is permanently stored.
• Quest received $865 million from the governments of Canada and Alberta to build and operate the facility.
• Shell is involved in a slate of CCS projects worldwide. Shell is a partner in the Chevron-led Gorgon project in Australia and has a share in the Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM) in Norway. CCS technology developed by Shell subsidiary Cansolv is in use at the Boundary Dam CCS project in Saskatchewan.
• Globally, there are 43 commercial large-scale CCS facilities, 18 in operation, 5 in construction and 20 in various stages of development, capturing almost 40 Mtpa of CO₂. There are four large-scale CCS projects operating or under construction in Canada. Source: Global CCS Institute
• CCS technology can be applied to a wide range of industries, including steel, cement and power generation, to significantly reduce CO₂ emissions.

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