Canada links new oil pipeline to carbon-capture project in federal-Alberta accord

The Pathways carbon capture project scaled back its targets as a new West Coast oil pipeline advances under a government accord. An economist estimates the pipeline would add 20 megatonnes of annual emissions on average, exceeding the project's reductions.

Cbc reported that the Pathways memorandum of understanding was made public on Monday after the federal and Alberta governments signed a non-binding agreement with the companies behind the project.

The accord signed late last year made the pipeline conditional on Pathways and vice versa. Alberta submitted its pipeline proposal to the federal major project office earlier this month. The Pathways Project now envisions storing six megatonnes of CO2 per year underground starting in 2035 and another 10-megatonne reduction by 2045.

An earlier version targeted 22 megatonnes annually by 2030. Dave Sawyer of the Canadian Climate Institute said the changes to Alberta’s carbon pricing system announced earlier this year “didn’t materially fix the market” in a way that would motivate industry to invest in emissions reduction. Oilsands and thermal heavy oil production contributed 92 million tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2024.

The Pembina Institute calculated that under a “Grand Bargain” scenario with both Pathways and the new pipeline, absolute oilsands emissions would reach 89 megatonnes annually by 2035, 19 per cent higher than the scenario with Pathways alone. That study was completed before the targets were scaled back.

The new million-barrel-a-day pipeline is to be developed, built and operated by federal Crown corporation Trans Mountain Corp.