Canadian Energy Centre
Canada should ‘shout from the rooftops’ its ability to reduce emissions with LNG
Morning view of a coal-fired power station in China. Getty Images photo
From the Canadian Energy Centre Ltd.
By James Snell and Deborah Jaremko
Canada should work with its allies and potential customers to receive credit for the global emissions reduction benefits of exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG), says a prominent Canadian energy advocate.
The equivalent of all Canadian GHG emissions could be eliminated by helping Asia switch 20 per cent of its coal fired power stations to natural gas, says Shannon Joseph, chair of Energy for a Secure Future, citing a recent report published by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
“Canada could help deliver 680 megatonnes of emissions reductions, and that’s more than our whole country,” she says.
“We should do it and shout it from the rooftops. We should move forward with LNG as an energy and emission solution.”
Receiving credit for lowering emissions with LNG could come through what’s known as Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, but Joseph says Canada need not wait for these carbon accounting rules to be settled before pressing forward.
“We need to assert, confidently, the environmental value we would be delivering to the world,” she says.
Shannon Joseph, chair of Energy for a Secure Future. Photo by Dave Chidley for the Canadian Energy Centre
Article 6 conceptually allows countries to collaborate with each other on emissions reduction goals by trading carbon credits. In theory, for example that could allow Canada receive credit for emissions reductions achieved in China by using Canadian LNG to displace coal.
The Paris Agreement signatories have not yet agreed on the rules to make Article 6 a reality. Meanwhile, driven by Asia, last year the world consumed more coal – and produced more emissions from that coal – than ever before, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The IEA says switching from coal to natural gas for electricity generation reduces emissions by half on average. LNG from Canada can deliver an even bigger decrease, reducing emissions by up to 62 per cent, according to a June 2020 study published in the Journal for Cleaner Production.
Even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, world LNG demand was expected to nearly double by 2040. The market has become even tighter as countries work to exclude Russian energy, says a report by Energy for a Secure Future.
Japan and South Korea, as well as Germany have asked Canada to step up LNG development to help mitigate the energy crisis.
With or without Article 6, Energy for a Secure Future is calling on Canada to work with its potential customers in Europe and Asia to recognize and credit the environmental benefits of Canadian LNG displacing higher emitting energy.
“Canada’s allies have come here asking for energy, and we should work directly with them to find a way to have our environmental contributions recognized,” says Joseph, adding the U.S. has moved ahead without credits, more than doubling LNG exports since 2019.
Canada has yet to export significant volumes of LNG after years of regulatory delay and cancelled projects – but things are changing.
LNG Canada in Kitimat B.C. will be the first major export facility to operate, starting in 2025. Woodfibre LNG near Squamish begins construction this fall with the aim to start operating in 2027. Other proposed projects include the Indigenous-led Cedar LNG facility in Kitimat and Ksi Lisims LNG near Prince Rupert.
LNG Canada CEO Jason Klein stands atop a receiving platform overlooking LNG processing units called trains that are used to convert natural gas into liquefied natural gas at the LNG Canada export terminal under construction, in Kitimat, B.C., on Wednesday, September 28, 2022. CP Images photo
Meanwhile, India, China and Japan remain consumers of Russian oil and gas, according to the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy.
“We are trying to help our allies meet the challenges they are facing. One of these is ensuring that their populations – sometimes of over a billion people – can even access modern forms of energy,” Joseph says.
“If Canada wants to be relevant and to lead, we have to come to the table with solutions to this question, alongside the environmental one. LNG is our biggest card.”
India will have the world’s largest population by 2028 – climbing to 1.45 billion and rising to 1.67 billion people by 2040, according to the United Nations Population Fund.
“Currently India is the fourth largest importer of LNG [in the world] and demand is expected to grow massively as 270 million people move up the socioeconomic ladder,” says Victor Thomas, CEO of the Canada-India Business Council.
Canada’s potential to deliver LNG to India “just makes good sense when you look at the geopolitical fractures that have occurred since 2022,” he says, noting the U.S. has recognized the opportunity and is taking action to form new business relationships in India.
Burning wood and other biomass for heat and cooking is still common in the South Asian country, while coal produces around three quarters of India’s electricity. According to the IEA, by 2040 India’s total energy demand will be 70 per cent higher than it was in 2019.
“Transitioning from wood burning to LNG is a massive emissions reduction,” says Thomas. “It’s a safe and reliable opportunity. People are looking for a country like Canada to be able to provide that.”
Alberta
The permanent CO2 storage site at the end of the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line is just getting started
Wells at the Clive carbon capture, utilization and storage project near Red Deer, Alta. Photo courtesy Enhance Energy
From the Canadian Energy Centre
Inside Clive, a model for reducing emissions while adding value in Alberta
It’s a bright spring day on a stretch of rolling farmland just northeast of Red Deer. It’s quiet, but for the wind rushing through the grass and the soft crunch of gravel underfoot.
The unassuming wellheads spaced widely across the landscape give little hint of the significance of what is happening underground.
In just five years, this site has locked away more than 6.5 million tonnes of CO₂ — equivalent to the annual emissions of about 1.5 million cars — stored nearly four CN Towers deep beneath the surface.
The CO₂ injection has not only reduced emissions but also breathed life into an oilfield that was heading for abandonment, generating jobs, economic activity and government revenue that would have otherwise been lost.
This is Clive, the endpoint of one of Canada’s largest carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) projects. And it’s just getting started.
Rooted in Alberta’s first oil boom
Clive’s history ties to Alberta’s first oil boom, with the field discovered in 1952 along the same geological trend as the legendary 1947 Leduc No. 1 gusher near Edmonton.
“The Clive field was discovered in the 1950s as really a follow-up to Leduc No. 1. This is, call it, Leduc No. 4,” said Chris Kupchenko, president of Enhance Energy, which now operates the Clive field.
Over the last 70 years Clive has produced about 70 million barrels of the site’s 130 million barrels of original oil in place, leaving enough energy behind to fuel six million gasoline-powered vehicles for one year.
“By the late 1990s and early 2000s, production had gone almost to zero,” said Candice Paton, Enhance’s vice-president of corporate affairs.
“There was resource left in the reservoir, but it would have been uneconomic to recover it.”
Facilities at the Clive project. Photo courtesy Enhance Energy
Gearing up for CO2
Calgary-based Enhance bought Clive in 2013 and kept it running despite high operating costs because of a major CO2 opportunity the company was developing on the horizon.
In 2008, Enhance and North West Redwater Partnership had launched development of the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line (ACTL), one of the world’s largest CO2 transportation systems.
Wolf Midstream joined the project in 2018 as the pipeline’s owner and operator.
Completed in 2020, the groundbreaking $1.2 billion project — supported by the governments of Canada and Alberta — connects carbon captured at industrial sites near Edmonton to the Clive facility.
“With CO2 we’re able to revitalize some of these fields, continue to produce some of the resource that was left behind and permanently store CO2 emissions,” Paton said.
Map of the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line courtesy of Wolf Midstream
An oversized pipeline on purpose
Each year, about 1.6 million tonnes of CO2 captured at the NWR Sturgeon Refinery and Nutrien Redwater fertilizer facility near Fort Saskatchewan travels down the trunk line to Clive.
In a unique twist, that is only about 10 per cent of the pipeline’s available space. The project partners intentionally built it with room to grow.
“We have a lot of excess capacity. The vision behind the pipe was, let’s remove barriers for the future,” Kupchenko said.
The Alberta government-supported goal was to expand CCS in the province, said James Fann, CEO of the Regina-based International CCS Knowledge Centre.
“They did it on purpose. The size of the infrastructure project creates the opportunity for other emitters to build capture projects along the way,” he said.
CO2 captured at the Sturgeon Refinery near Edmonton is transported by the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line to the Clive project. Photo courtesy North West Redwater Partnership
Extending the value of aging assets
Building more CCUS projects like Clive that incorporate enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is a model for extending the economic value of aging oil and gas fields in Alberta, Kupchenko said.
“EOR can be thought of as redeveloping real estate,” he said.
“Take an inner-city lot with a 700-square-foot house on it. The bad thing is there’s a 100-year-old house that has to be torn down. But the great thing is there’s a road to it. There’s power to it, there’s a sewer connection, there’s water, there’s all the things.
“That’s what this is. We’re redeveloping a field that was discovered 70 years ago and has at least 30 more years of life.”
The 180 existing wellbores are also all assets, Kupchenko said.
“They may not all be producing oil or injecting CO2, but every one of them is used. They are our eyes into the reservoir.”
CO2 injection well at the Clive carbon capture, utilization and storage project. Photo for the Canadian Energy Centre
Alberta’s ‘beautiful’ CCUS geology
The existing wells are an important part of measurement, monitoring and verification (MMV) at Clive.
The Alberta Energy Regulator requires CCUS projects to implement a comprehensive MMV program to assess storage performance and demonstrate the long-term safety and security of CO₂.
Katherine Romanak, a subsurface CCUS specialist at the University of Texas at Austin, said that her nearly 20 years of global research indicate the process is safe.
“There’s never been a leak of CO2 from a storage site,” she said.
Alberta’s geology is particularly suitable for CCUS, with permanent storage potential estimated at more than 100 billion tonnes.
“The geology is beautiful,” Romanak said.
“It’s the thickest reservoir rocks you’ve ever seen. It’s really good injectivity, porosity and permeability, and the confining layers are crazy thick.”
Suitability of global regions for CO2 storage. Courtesy Global CCS Institute
CO2-EOR gaining prominence
The extra capacity on the ACTL pipeline offers a key opportunity to capitalize on storage potential while addressing aging oil and gas fields, according to the Alberta government’s Mature Asset Strategy, released earlier this year.
The report says expanding CCUS to EOR could attract investment, cut emissions and encourage producers to reinvest in existing properties — instead of abandoning them.
However, this opportunity is limited by federal policy.
Ottawa’s CCUS Investment Tax Credit, which became available in June 2024, does not apply to EOR projects.
“Often people will equate EOR with a project that doesn’t store CO2 permanently,” Kupchenko said.
“We like to always make sure that people understand that every ton of CO2 that enters this project is permanently sequestered. And we take great effort into storing that CO2.”
The International Energy Forum — representing energy ministers from nearly 70 countries including Canada, the U.S., China, India, Norway, and Saudi Arabia — says CO₂-based EOR is gaining prominence as a carbon sequestration tool.
The technology can “transform a traditional oil recovery method into a key pillar of energy security and climate strategy,” according to a June 2025 IEF report.
Drone view of the Clive project. Photo courtesy Enhance Energy
Tapping into more opportunity
In Central Alberta, Enhance Energy is advancing a new permanent CO2 storage project called Origins that is designed to revitalize additional aging oil and gas fields while reducing emissions, using the ACTL pipeline.
“Origins is a hub that’s going to enable larger scale EOR development,” Kupchenko said.
“There’s at least 10 times more oil in place in this area.”
Meanwhile, Wolf Midstream is extending the pipeline further into the Edmonton region to transport more CO2 captured from additional industrial facilities.
Canadian Energy Centre
Cross-Canada economic benefits of the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline project
From the Canadian Energy Centre
Billions in government revenue and thousands of jobs across provinces
Announced in 2006, the Northern Gateway project would have built twin pipelines between Bruderheim, Alta. and a marine terminal at Kitimat, B.C.
One pipeline would export 525,000 barrels per day of heavy oil from Alberta to tidewater markets. The other would import 193,000 barrels per day of condensate to Alberta to dilute heavy oil for pipeline transportation.
The project would have generated significant economic benefits across Canada.
The following projections are drawn from the report Public Interest Benefits of the Northern Gateway Project (Wright Mansell Research Ltd., July 2012), which was submitted as reply evidence during the regulatory process.
Financial figures have been adjusted to 2025 dollars using the Bank of Canada’s Inflation Calculator, with $1.00 in 2012 equivalent to $1.34 in 2025.
Total Government Revenue by Region
Between 2019 and 2048, a period encompassing both construction and operations, the Northern Gateway project was projected to generate the following total government revenues by region (direct, indirect and induced):
British Columbia
- Provincial government revenue: $11.5 billion
- Federal government revenue: $8.9 billion
- Total: $20.4 billion
Alberta
- Provincial government revenue: $49.4 billion
- Federal government revenue: $41.5 billion
- Total: $90.9 billion
Ontario
- Provincial government revenue: $1.7 billion
- Federal government revenue: $2.7 billion
- Total: $4.4 billion
Quebec
- Provincial government revenue: $746 million
- Federal government revenue: $541 million
- Total: $1.29 billion
Saskatchewan
- Provincial government revenue: $6.9 billion
- Federal government revenue: $4.4 billion
- Total: $11.3 billion
Other
- Provincial government revenue: $1.9 billion
- Federal government revenue: $1.4 billion
- Total: $3.3 billion
Canada
- Provincial government revenue: $72.1 billion
- Federal government revenue: $59.4 billion
- Total: $131.7 billion
Annual Government Revenue by Region
Over the period 2019 and 2048, the Northern Gateway project was projected to generate the following annual government revenues by region (direct, indirect and induced):
British Columbia
- Provincial government revenue: $340 million
- Federal government revenue: $261 million
- Total: $601 million per year
Alberta
- Provincial government revenue: $1.5 billion
- Federal government revenue: $1.2 billion
- Total: $2.7 billion per year
Ontario
- Provincial government revenue: $51 million
- Federal government revenue: $79 million
- Total: $130 million per year
Quebec
- Provincial government revenue: $21 million
- Federal government revenue: $16 million
- Total: $37 million per year
Saskatchewan
- Provincial government revenue: $204 million
- Federal government revenue: $129 million
- Total: $333 million per year
Other
- Provincial government revenue: $58 million
- Federal government revenue: $40 million
- Total: $98 million per year
Canada
- Provincial government revenue: $2.1 billion
- Federal government revenue: $1.7 billion
- Total: $3.8 billion per year
Employment by Region
Over the period 2019 to 2048, the Northern Gateway Pipeline was projected to generate the following direct, indirect and induced full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs by region:
British Columbia
- Annual average: 7,736
- Total over the period: 224,344
Alberta
- Annual average: 11,798
- Total over the period: 342,142
Ontario
- Annual average: 3,061
- Total over the period: 88,769
Quebec
- Annual average: 1,003
- Total over the period: 29,087
Saskatchewan
- Annual average: 2,127
- Total over the period: 61,683
Other
- Annual average: 953
- Total over the period: 27,637
Canada
- Annual average: 26,678
- Total over the period: 773,662
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