Alberta Boasts of Methane Reduction Levels

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Written by Daniel Graeber for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--With help from provincial investments, the government of oil-rich Alberta said it's been able to cut methane emissions from its energy sector by more than 50% over the last 10 years.

Rebecca Schulz, the provincial minister for the environment, is in Azerbaijan for the 29th annual Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP 29. The framework convention is the parent treaty to the Paris climate accord.

"Alberta's environment minister will use the largest global climate summit to promote the province's effective approach to reducing emissions while keeping energy reliable, secure and affordable," the provincial government said Thursday, before the minister departed for Azerbaijan.

Canada is the fourth-largest crude oil producer in the world, with much of that coming from Alberta. The provincial government said production averaged 4.3 million barrels per day (BBL/d) last year and could increase by another 15% by 2025.

Extracting the heavy type of crude oil found largely in Alberta is energy-intensive, though the Alberta-based Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) said emissions from oil and gas are already down about 2% over the 10-year period ending in 2021. Production on an oil-equivalent basis grew by 37% over the same period.

The provincial government added that it's invested US$56 million on emission reduction strategies, abating some 17 million metric tons of methane emissions since 2020. All told, the Alberta Energy Regulator estimates that methane emissions from the oil and gas sector are down 52% since 2014, even as production increases.

Elsewhere, Alberta plans to invest around US$1 billion over the next 15 years to develop two large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities, the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line and the Quest Project.

And it's not just a provincial effort. The federal government last week contributed more than US$5.5 billion for a demonstration-scale carbon sequestration system at a paper mill in Quebec. The project will test a steam-driven system designed to capture as much as 1,800 metric tons of carbon emissions from the mill each year.

"It will also serve as a model for carbon removal that can be replicated throughout the pulp and paper industry," the federal government said.

The federal government, meanwhile, proposed regulations that would obligate the oil and gas industry to cut emissions 35% from 2019 levels through gradual reductions through 2050.

If passed, enforcement would begin in 2030 through a sort of cap-and-trade system that the government said was designed to limit emissions, but not production. Alberta's provincial government, however, said it's taking a common-sense approach with its emission reduction strategies.

"We do not need Ottawa to tell us how to reduce emissions," the provincial minister for the environment said Thursday. "In fact, the federal government should learn from Alberta's success."

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