World’s First Oil Sands Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) Project
Fluor Corporation has announced today that Shell has selected the firm as its engineering, procurement and construction contractor for Shell’s carbon capture facility. The project will be built on behalf of the Athabasca Oil Sands Project joint venture owners (Shell, Chevron and Marathon Oil) with support from the Government of Canada for the World’s first Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) project.
“Shell’s confidence in choosing Fluor as its EPC contractor for this first-of-its-kind CCS project is a testament to our long-term, successful business relationships established by building Shell projects in Canada and throughout the world,” said president of Fluor’s Energy & Chemicals Group, Peter Oosterveer. “Fluor has more than two decades of experience with carbon capture technologies and the Canadian oil sands industry, so this unique opportunity will demonstrate our project execution abilities to bring clean energy to the marketplace. The use of CCS technology will allow our customers to address their carbon footprint and sustainability needs.”
The Athabasca Oil Sands Project produces bitumen, which is piped to Shell’s Scotford Upgrader. Construction has already begun on the project and starting late 2015, Quest will capture and store deep underground more than one million tons of CO2 annually produced in bitumen processing.
The Quest project will reduce emissions from the Scotford Upgrader by up to 35 per cent, the equivalent of taking up to 175,000 North American cars off the road annually.
The Canadian government has identified CCS as an important technology in their strategies to reduce CO2 emissions.
Fluor will provide full EPC services using its Third Gen Modular Execution approach. Captured carbon dioxide will be sent about 80 kilometers from the facility via underground pipeline to an underground storage site. Fluor has been providing preliminary services and front-end engineering and design for Quest since 2009.