$865 million for Quest CCS project

THE UK fabrication sector has received a welcome boost with Scottish yard Bifab set to land a coveted contract to build a 3500-tonne deck for London-based Chrysaor’s unusual Solan project in UK waters.

HOUSTON-based KBR is poised to be the main turnkey contractor for the construction of at least one additional liquefied natural gas train at Woodside ­Petroleum’s Pluto LNG project in Australia.

Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) aims to complete by the end of this year the pre-qualification and project management selection process for the multi-billion dollar clean-up of the oil lakes left by the retreating Iraqi army in 1991.

THE oil and gas upstream sector in Taranaki, New Zealand, has a spring in its step following a series of onshore discoveries that have given it a gentle reminder about the region’s remaining potential.

Canada will fund almost two-thirds of supermajor Shell’s carbon capture and storage project on its Alberta oil sands processing facility, one of the largest CO2-reduction efforts of its kind.

Shell said the state and national governments will together provide $865 million for its Quest CCS project, which is designed to capture and store over 1million tonnes of CO2 a year produced by the company's Scotford Upgrader heavy oil sands operation.

"It's a very significant milestone for Shell," Dow Jones quoted John Abbott, Shell's executive vice president of heavy oil as saying.

"This will be the first commercial application of CCS technology in an oil sands project, and one of the largest CCS projects in the world."

The Canadian government has estimated the project will cost about $1.3 billion over a 15-year period, with the $865 million funding to be provided over a similar time frame.

"The government is committed to innovative technologies such as the Quest project, which will help to bring high quality jobs to Alberta while contributing to the responsible development of Canada's energy resources," said Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver.

CCS, technology designed to mitigate climate change from carbon emissions, takes carbon dioxide produced from plants like the Scotford Upgrader and transports it to be stored in deep underground structures.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the mitigation potential of CCS could account for about one-fifth of the total mitigation effort needed by 2050 if projects are started quickly.

It will then concentrate, pressurise and pipe it 80 kilometers to the north-east of Edmonton where it will be injected two kilometers underground, Abbott explained.

The signing of the funding agreement was announced in conjunction with a ceremony marking the earlier start-up of Shell's 100,000-barrel-a-day expansion of its Athabasca Oil Sands Project, or AOSP, bringing total capacity at the facility to 255,000 barrels a day.

The AOSP, a joint venture between Shell and its partners Chevron and Marathon, includes the Muskeg River Mine and Jackpine Mine, as well as the Scotford Upgrader.