Canada’s Advantage Advances Low-Cost CCS

Canadian producer Advantage Oil & Gas said March 31 it had developed a “breakthrough” carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology commercially profitable at a carbon price under C$50 (US$40)/mt and would deploy it at a gas plant in Alberta next year.

The modular carbon capture and storage (MCCS) technology, which Advantage developed with Allardyce Bower Consulting, can be retrofitted to most point-source industrial emitters, including in sectors that are hard to decarbonise, such as power generation, blue hydrogen production, natural gas liquefaction, oil and gas processing and cement and steel production. The two companies have established a joint venture, Entropy, which will own the technology and market it globally.

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MCCS is applicable to point sources as small as 8,000 mt of CO₂-equivalent (CO₂e)/year and recovers about 90% of CO₂ emissions. There is no upper scalability limit for the technology, Advantage said.

The first MCCS project will be developed in two phases at Advantage’s Glacier gas plant in northwest Alberta, with the first phase to cost C$27mn and capture and permanently sequester 46,000 mt CO₂e/year in a deep saline aquifer, beginning as early as March 2022. Advantage will invest C$7mn in Phase 1, with the balance to come from a third party in the form of a non-equity, non-dilutive partnership.

Operating income from monetising carbon offsets in Phase 1 is projected at up to C$3mn/year, assuming an offset price of C$50/mt. Energy input and operating costs for Phase 1 are estimated at C$15/mt.

When Phase 1 is operational, Advantage will begin marketing a proportion of its production as “blue” natural gas, a net zero energy supply.

Entropy may develop Phase 2 as early as 2023 at an expected cost of C$49mn. The second phase would capture and store an additional 136,000 mt CO₂e/year.

Entropy has also been contracted to design a third-party MCCS project in British Columbia and has been engaged to evaluate several other possible applications in various industrial sectors across western Canada and in the US.