News
Wood secures engineering contract for Pathways Alliance CCS pipeline
February 24, 2023
By CCE
Photo courtesy Pathways Alliance.
Pathways Alliance, which comprises Canada’s six largest oil sands producers, has awarded a $10-million engineering services contract to Wood for its proposed carbon capture and storage (CCS) pipeline in Alberta.
The contract will support the engineering and design of an approximately 400-km main transportation line and laterals linking oil sands facilities in the Fort McMurray, Christina Lake and Cold Lake regions with a permanent subsurface carbon sequestration hub near Cold Lake. The distribution system, along with the required metering and booster stations, is intended gather and transport up to 40 Mt/year of carbon dioxide from more than 20 oil sands facilities by 2050.
The transportation pipeline system with varying diameters is a key component of Pathways Alliance’s foundational project, which is expected to reduce emissions by 10 to 12 million tonnes annually by 2030, about half of the alliance’s 22 million tonne goal by the end of this decade.
Wood’s work will focus on the main transportation line that will link an initial 14 oil sands facilities to the storage hub, addressing such details as pipe size, materials, design of monitoring stations and route. Wherever possible, the line will follow existing pipeline rights-of-ways.
“We are proud to partner with the alliance as we incorporate learnings from our initial studies to inform the next stage of engineering for the transportation pipeline system,” says John Day, Wood’s senior vice-president (SVP) for oil and gas in the Americas region. “Wood is a recognized leader in carbon capture and carbon dioxide pipelines and we have been aiding emission reduction projects for decades. Our detailed knowledge of the Canadian oil sands and their producing organizations allows us to make a significant impact on this project.”
Established in 2021, the alliance operates about 95% of Canada’s oil sands production and is working with the federal and Alberta governments to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050.
Print this page
