Canada releases draft guidance on new oil and gas project emissions

Canada has released draft guidelines on how new oil and gas projects should demonstrate "best-in-class" greenhouse gas emissions performance, following up on a government announcement first made in April, said Reuters.

The guidance, released late on Tuesday, is intended to clarify for industry what is expected of projects going through federal regulatory assessment, said Environment Canada spokesperson Oliver Anderson. Canada, the world's fourth-largest oil producer, has pledged to cut carbon emissions 40-45% below 2005 levels by 2030, and reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal government is trying to balance its climate ambitions with the interests of the oil and gas sector, which makes up around 5% of Canadian GDP, but is also the highest-polluting sector of the economy.

Environment Canada first promised requirements for new projects to demonstrate best-in-class emissions standards on the same day it approved Equinor's huge Bay du Nord offshore project. At the time, there was uncertainty among industry players what best-in-class meant.

The draft guidance outlines how companies should identify the best emissions performance of similar projects globally, within different categories including offshore oil, liquefied natural gas or oil sands upgrading. Then the company needs to show regulators how their project will match that best-in-class performance, or explain what circumstances would prevent them from doing so. Companies also need to demonstrate how they would aim to get projects towards net-zero emissions.

"This is not saying net zero is a standard requirement, but when project approvals are being made what we want to see is a plan to get there, or what circumstances may not make it possible," Anderson said. The federal government is also consulting on a separate oil and gas emissions cap.

Environment Canada is accepting comments on the guidance until Dec. 3 and expects to publish a final version in 2023.

As per MRC, a fire and explosion at an idled oil refinery in Canada's Newfoundland and Labrador province injured eight people before the blaze was contained, Canadian police said. All eight people went to hospital, some with serious injuries, said Royal Canadian Mounted Police spokesperson Corporal Jolene Garland. All other employees have been accounted for.
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Emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from oil and gas infrastructure could be stamped out within the next 10 years, said Reuters.

Speaking at the Reuters IMPACT climate conference in London, they noted that technology to detect leakages from oil and gas had been ramping up in the last five years, making mitigation feasible.

"Those technologies when deployed ... can fix the methane emissions very quickly," said Julien Perez, vice-president of strategy and policy at the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, a consortium of CEOs from a dozen large oil and gas companies. Last year, more than 100 countries pledged to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030. Methane is about 80 times more powerful at trapping heat than carbon dioxide during a 20-year timeframe.

"The launch of the Global Methane Pledge will create momentum," Perez said. "Money will flow." Currently, oil and gas extraction, processing and distribution is responsible for 23% of global methane emissions, according to a 2021 assessment by the World Meteorological Organization. Landfills account for about 20% of emissions, and roughly one-third come from the agricultural sector.

Methane from oil and gas "is one part of (global greenhouse gas emissions) that can be solved this decade," said Georges Tijbosch, CEO of MIQ, a methane emissions certification standard.

Scientists and industry are now using sensors attached to aircraft and satellites to detect methane leaks. This allows oil and gas companies to quickly address the potent plumes, said Deepak Anand, chief revenue officer at GHGSat, a global emissions monitoring company.

"Methane is a fuel. It can be captured and used," he said. "What we try to do is help the oil and gas industry find treasure." Recently, GHGSat measured the methane leaking from the damaged Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. They found the amount of emissions was equivalent to those from 630,000 pounds of coal burning every hour.

"If we're going to maintain gas a transition fuel ... we have to focus on how we can reduce the footprint of gas in the energy system, particularly when it comes to methane," said Perez.

As per MRC, Strike action and unplanned maintenance has taken offline more than 60% of France's refining capacity - or 740,000 bpd - forcing the country to import more when global supply uncertainty has increased the cost. A walkout by hard-left CGT trade union members at TotalEnergies has disrupted operations at two refineries and two storage facilities, and two Exxon Mobil refineries have faced similar problems since Sept 20.
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Maire Tecnimont announced that its main subsidiaries Tecnimont, KT-Kinetics Technology and Stamicarbon have been granted new awards for a total amount of approximately EUR200 mln for licensing as well as engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) activities, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

These contracts have been awarded by leading international clients based in a wide spectrum of countries, from North America to the Far East.

In particular, Tecnimont Private Limited, Tecnimont’s Indian subsidiary, has been awarded by Adani Group a Detailed Feasibility Study for a carbon capture unit to be implemented inside a thermal power plant located in Mundra, in India. The objective is to integrate a carbon capturing unit inside Adani’s currently operating thermal power plant, enabling the production of low carbon chemicals, such as urea and methanol. A task force combining Tecnimont Private Limited’s engineering capabilities with NextChem’s strong technological know-how will carry out the study.

With these new awards Maire Tecnimont Group further confirms the strong geographical diversification of its backlog as well as the reliability of its technology-driven business model. Moreover, the award granted by Adani Group is a further testament to the Group's leadership in helping its clients implement effective decarbonization technologies today on a path to achieving their future ESG objectives.

We remind, Maire Tecnimont S.p.A. announces that its subsidiary NextChem has been awarded a Pre-FEED engineering services contract by MadoquaPower2X to develop and operate an integrated renewable hydrogen and green ammonia plant located in Sines, Portugal.

Maire Tecnimont S.p.A., a company listed on the Milan Stock Exchange, heads an international industrial group that is a leader in the transformation of natural resources (plant engineering in downstream oil & gas, with technological and execution competences). Through its subsidiary NextChem, it operates in the field of green chemistry and the technologies to support the energy transition. Maire Tecnimont Group operates in about 45 countries, through approximately 50 operative companies and about 9,300 people.
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The Chemours Company, a global chemistry company with leading market positions in Titanium Technologies, Thermal & Specialized Solutions, and Advanced Performance Materials, announced a planned USD200 million investment to increase capacity and advance technology for its industry-leading Nafion™ ion exchange materials to support the Hydrogen Economy, said the company.

Accelerated climate ambitions and energy challenges have fast-tracked demand for hydrogen power and fuel cell technology. Chemours’ investment will support growing market demand for clean hydrogen generation using water electrolyzers, energy storage in flow batteries, and hydrogen conversion to power fuel cell vehicles of the future.

"Fueled by government and industrial investment and carbon-neutral secular trends, the Hydrogen Economy is at a critical juncture, and investment is needed to support our strategic partners to deliver against those ambitious goals. Our Nafion™ membrane technology is the heart of hydrogen power generation, storage, and use,” said Denise Dignam, President of Advanced Performance Materials at Chemours. "Built on more than 50 years of experience, this planned new investment will further support the growth of Chemours’ partners, the overall Hydrogen Economy, and positions Chemours as a major industry player."

The investment will focus on the Nafion™ ion exchange materials technology platform, whose chemical properties can help generate clean hydrogen from water electrolysis enabling the Hydrogen Economy. Nafion™ proton exchange membranes are used in fuel cells to convert hydrogen to power instantly, making fleets of zero-emission fuel cell-powered trucks, buses, trains, and cars a reality. And Nafion™ ion exchange materials enable flow batteries to store excess renewable energy and convert it back to electricity, helping to solve the challenge of renewable power intermittency.

We remind, The Chemours Company (Wilmington, Del.) announced that it will be expanding its Chemours Opteon YF (HFO-1234yf) capacity to help meet customer needs as they continue transitioning to lower GWP refrigerants. The Opteon YF and YF blends refrigerants are now used in millions of vehicles and thousands of retail stores around the world, with zero ozone depletion potential (ODP) and global warming potential (GWP) that is significantly lower than the legacy refrigerants.

Chemours is committed to leadership in responsible manufacturing, and this capacity investment will contribute to its goal of shifting the company’s product portfolio to offerings that contribute to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). Chemours is evaluating potential locations in the United States and Europe for the investment in accordance with applicable regulatory frameworks and is particularly interested in supporting the local communities where they operate.
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ORLEN Unipetrol, the largest Czech petrochemical company, has commissioned a new production unit for dicyclopentadiene, which will expand its product portfolio, say the company.

This liquid hydrocarbon, abbreviated as DCPD, has a broad range of applications in the automotive industry, construction, electrical engineering, medicine, and pharmaceutical sectors. ORLEN Unipetrol will produce up to 26,000 tonnes of DCPD per year, making it one of the four largest producers in Europe. Interestingly, dicyclopentadiene will be made using a method developed by ORLEN Unipetrol researchers in collaboration with the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague. The investment in the construction of the new production unit totalled CZK 831 million. Twenty new jobs were created to ensure this new production.

“There is high demand for this product on global markets. In Europe, there is currently a deficit in DCPD production capacity. We expect demand to increase by an additional 26 per cent, by 40 per cent in American markets and by 60 per cent in Asian markets by 2030. The implementation of our own production technology allows us to use the flexibility of the unit and produce a product in a wide range of qualities from basic technical DCPD to highly pure DCPD for more demanding applications, for example for the production of transparent substances,” explains Tomasz Wiatrak, chairman of the ORLEN Unipetrol Group’s board of directors. He adds: “A close collaboration of our researchers with academia fundamentally contributes towards our technological development, and especially our co-operation with the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague has been at a high level for a long time."

The technological process of isolating DCPD from the so-called pyrolysis gasoline was developed within a long-term strategic project using the steam cracker’s by-products. “The project’s objective was to find a way to isolate hydrocarbons that are created as by-products in the petrochemical production units, have a higher added value and can be well used on the market. DCPD is one such case. Together with the team led by Professor Josef Pasek from the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague, we designed a suitable production method and created a technology to isolate DCPD in a wide range of commercial quality levels, with the installed capacity to represent approximately 25 per cent of Europe’s entire production,” says Tomas Herink, a member of the ORLEN Unipetrol Group’s board of directors responsible for production, research and development.

“The collaboration of the University of Chemistry and Technology and ORLEN Unipetrol has had a long and successful tradition. Its origins date back to the 1990s. Our joint research and collaboration have always focused on developing technologies related to crude oil processing and petrochemistry. Therefore, the realisation of the technology to isolate DCPD developed by our experts is an excellent example of the connection between academia and industry,” says Pavel Matejka, rector of the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague.

ORLEN Unipetrol will produce DCPD with a distillation purity between 80 and 94 per cent. Such a configured product will be used for further production of polymer materials, resins, and chemical specialities used, for example, in the production of wind turbine propellers, coloured asphalts, adhesives, dyes and pigments, automobile and maritime components and skeletons, fibre optic cables, special lenses, medical components, packaging materials and sanitary products for kitchens and bathrooms.

We remind, ORLEN Unipetrol Group continues to meet its strategic development objectives by 2030. As part of this strategy, it also focuses on the principles of circular economy and sustainability. It develops them by building a broad portfolio of recycling activities, thanks to which it can effectively obtain and process plastic waste and biowaste and make new petrochemical products and biofuels from it. Now it follows these activities, especially in chemical recycling, with its entry into the segment of mechanical recycling by acquiring REMAQ, a leading player in the region of Central and Eastern Europe, in its group.

The ORLEN Unipetrol Group is the largest refining and petrochemical company in the Czech Republic. It focuses on crude oil processing and the production, distribution and sale of vehicle fuels and petrochemical products – particularly plastics and fertilisers. It belongs among the critical players in the Czech and Central European markets in all these areas. The ORLEN Unipetrol Group encompasses refineries and production plants in Litvinov and Kralupy nad Vltavou, Paramo, with its Mogul brand in Pardubice and Kolin, Spolana Neratovice, and two research centres in Litvinov and Brno. Unipetrol also includes a network of ORLEN Benzina filling stations in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
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