Shell has proposed building a large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) project at its Scotford refinery and chemicals plant in Alberta, Canada.

The proposal follows the successful deployment of a pilot project known as Quest CCS, which has captured and stored 6mn t CO₂ since 2015 from the Scotford upgrader, which sits next to the refinery.

The initial phase of the new project—known as Polaris—would capture and store approximately 750,000t/yr CO₂ from the wider refinery and chemicals plant, reducing Shell’s scope one and two emissions by nearly 40pc from the refinery and nearly 30pc from the chemicals plant.

“Polaris CCS will create new jobs, support our local economy, enhance business certainty, investment attractiveness, and aid in recovery from Covid-19” Frank, Strathcona County mayor

It would focus on post-combustion capture from the Scotford refinery's steam methane reformers, which produce hydrogen for use in the refining process—effectively making it a blue hydrogen production plant. It would also take a CO₂ waste stream from the monoethylene glycol (MEG) plant.

This waste stream and CO₂ captured from the refinery’s hydrogen plants would be transported via a 12km pipeline to storage wells in the Basal Cambrian Sands—the same formation used to store CO₂ from the Quest CCS facility.

The second phase of the Polaris CCS project would involve the creation of a storage hub in Alberta with the potential to store 10mn t/yr of CO₂.

Shell is also exploring the development of additional volumes of blue and green hydrogen at Scotford.

Once fully built, Polaris would contribute to the Edmonton region becoming Canada’s first hydrogen hub, according to Rod Frank, mayor of Strathcona County, where the plant is sited.

“Polaris CCS will create new jobs, support our local economy, enhance business certainty, investment attractiveness, and aid in recovery from Covid-19,” he says.

“It will also reduce carbon emissions and move our region closer to becoming North America’s Hydrogen Hub, the fuel of the future.”

Emission reduction goals

Shell has set a goal to cut the carbon intensity of its scope one, two and three emissions by 20pc by 2030 and 45pc in 2035 before reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. This translates to an overall cut in carbon intensity from 79gCO₂e/MJ in 2016 to under 40gCO₂e/MJ by 2035 and 0gCO₂e/MJ by 2050.

Unlike TotalEnergies, BP and Norway's Equinor—which have made significant investments in renewables—Shell has chosen a different strategy for reducing the carbon intensity of its operations. It has focused more on natural gas and LNG as a transition fuel and reduced its refining footprint from 13 to six refineries.

Shell plans to integrate this smaller set of core refinery sites with chemicals plants, which will improve efficiency and opportunities for CCS. It refers to these sites as “energy and chemicals parks”.

10GW – Achievable blue hydrogen production by 2030

“These locations will maximise the integration benefits of conventional fuels and chemicals production while also offering new low-carbon fuels and performance chemicals,” says Shell in a statement. The firm still needs to take FID on Polaris

Two other consortiums have proposed CCS projects in Alberta recently—Suncor-Atco and TC Energy-Pembina Pipeline.

Canada has a federal carbon tax of C$30/t ($24/t), which will rise to C$170/t by 2030.

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Author: Tom Young