Shell Canada Products, a subsidiary of Shell plc, announced its approval of two significant carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects on June 26, 2024. The first project, known as Polaris, is situated within the Shell Energy and Chemicals Park in Scotford, Alberta, and aims to capture approximately 650,000 tonnes of CO2 annually from the Scotford refinery and chemicals complex. This initiative is expected to reduce Scope 1 CO2 emissions by up to 40% at the refinery and by up to 22% at the chemicals complex.
In addition to Polaris, Shell has approved the Final Investment Decision (FID) for the Atlas Carbon Storage Hub, a 50-50 joint venture with ATCO EnPower. The Atlas hub will provide secure underground storage for CO2 captured by Polaris. The CO2 will be transported via a 22-kilometer pipeline to Atlas, where it will be stored around two kilometers underground in the Basal Cambrian Sands formation. The same geological formation is currently used by the Quest CCS facility at Scotford, which has stored over nine million tonnes of CO2 since 2015.
Both the Polaris and Atlas projects are scheduled to commence operations by the end of 2028. Huibert Vigeveno, Shell's Director of Downstream, Renewable Energy, and Energy Solutions, emphasized the importance of these projects in achieving the Paris Agreement climate goals. Shell plans to invest $10 billion to $15 billion from 2023 to 2025 in low-carbon energy solutions, including CCS technologies.
These new projects highlight Shell's continuing commitment to sustainable practices and leveraging CCS technologies to reduce its carbon footprint.