Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
5/9/2014
Royal Dutch Shell’s Quest project, which has been in construction since September 2012, is officially beyond 50 percent complete and on track for its 2015 operational date. The project is a retrofit of capture technology onto Shell’s existing Scotford oil sands upgrader near Edmonton, Alberta. When completed, the project will remove an estimated 1 million tonnes of CO2 annually from the bitumen upgrader and transport it 40 miles north to a storage site. It is projected that the project can run at this capacity for 25 years.
Construction continues on schedule with all major equipment, including the compressor and towers on the construction site awaiting installation. Injection wells have been drilled and testing is complete on two of the three. Work continues on the pipeline with less than 50 percent of the welding work remaining. “We’re planning to be operationally ready for this project next year. Our project tracking is on target and slightly below cost, which is very good,” Sean McFadden, Quest Sequestration Manager at Shell, said during this year’s Annual CCUS Conference, held in Pittsburgh, Pa., last week.
Moving forward in construction of the project wellpad, MMV sensors will be hooked up and tested by the fourth quarter of 2014. Baseline sampling of the MMV program is scheduled to be complete during the first quarter of 2015. The plant is being constructed in modules, the last of which is scheduled to be installed this summer. Pipeline mechanical completion is expected for this fall and mechanical completion of the capture facility is scheduled for the first quarter of 2015.
The project continues to receive support from the Albertan government. “A few weeks ago, I was at the Shell Scotford site for a tour of the site and saw first-hand progress being made on this world class construction project,” said Diana McQueen, Minister of Energy in the Province of Alberta. “At 50 percent construction built to date, Shell is making great strides with this carbon capture and storage project. In addition to helping reduce our GHG emissions, the CCS program has also had some added benefits … the project has employed over 900 skilled works to build site and pipelines to the storage site”
