The Quest facility is a Royal Dutch Shell Plc-operated carbon capture and storage project in Canada. It has been sequestering emissions from the Scotford Upgrader near Edmonton, Alberta, since November 2015. It has done so well that it hit a milestone of sequestering 4 million tons of carbon dioxide about six months ahead of schedule and at a lower cost than estimated, due to better-than-expected reliability. 4 million tons is equivalent to the annual emissions of about one million cars.
Anne Halladay, a geophysicist who has been an adviser on the project since it was in construction in 2014, said that since the facility opened, it has run ahead of its target of capturing 1 million tons of carbon every year. The drivers of this enhanced performance are less unplanned maintenance than projected and more efficient performance, including less chemical usage, she explained.
The Quest facility cost about C$1.35 billion ($1 billion) to build and received C$865 million of that from the Canadian and Alberta governments. Massive projects like this require large amounts of capital and more regulatory incentives to get built. Their focus is to capture carbon dioxide.
Quest works together with Shell to help reduce their carbon footprint. About one-third of the CO2 emissions from the Shell-operated Scotford Upgrader – which turns oils and bitumen into synthetic crude that can be refined into fuel and other products – is captured and stored safely underground thanks to Quest.
Yes, Shell’s carbon storage project is a success story when it comes to carbon capture. However, they haven’t been as successful in finding projects that can use carbon dioxide for a greater purpose. Halladay sees the future of Quest supporting other projects that use the sequestered carbon for industrial purposes such as fertilizer, pharmaceuticals, and enhanced oil recovery.
Halladay said in an interview with Bloomberg:
“I would love to be sitting here talking about the next 12 carbon capture and storage projects that Alberta has been supporting and that are in the pipeline, but unfortunately we’re not seeing a lot of that. What we’re looking at now is more carbon capture utilization and storage, which is really about creating a market where we can use the carbon dioxide.”
According to Shell, Quest has stored more carbon dioxide than any other similar project in the world and is doing it at a higher annual rate. Halladay sees a future for carbon capture and storage as part of the “all hands on deck” strategy, an essential element to reduce emissions and combat climate change.
Shell Canada president Michael Crothers estimates that building and operating a similar project now would cost 20-30% less because of lessons learned at Quest. He said:
“Quest continues to show the world that carbon capture and storage is working, its costs are coming down and that Canadians are leaders in CCS.”
