A huge cutting-edge refinery being built in Alberta’s industrial heartland could be a game changer for the oilsands when it comes to converting bitumen to diesel in an environmentally sound way.
Billing itself as “the next chapter in Alberta’s energy future,” the North West Redwater Sturgeon Refinery is the first refinery to be built with an integrated carbon capture and storage system.
“It’s quite unique. It’s the first refinery in the world that incorporates CO2 capture from the get-go,” says North West Refining chief executive and chair Ian MacGregor, a 67-year-old Calgary-based industry veteran who founded North West Upgrading in 2004.
“So if you said, ‘what is the cost of the diesel fuel you make,’ ours is about 30 percent lower than any diesel that is made from a typical oilsands plant.”
The first refinery to be built in Canada since 1984, Sturgeon will also reduce Alberta’s dependence on the export of raw bitumen by refining it in the province into ultra-low sulphur diesel and other products instead of sending it south of the border.
