CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - TransCanada Corp said on Thursday that plans by a Saskatchewan utility to sell carbon-dioxide captured from a power plant are no threat to its own initiative in the Western Canadian province.
By Scott Haggett
CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - TransCanada Corp said on Thursday that plans by a Saskatchewan utility to sell carbon-dioxide captured from a power plant are no threat to its own initiative in the Western Canadian province.
John Jenkins, project manager for TransCanada's proposed C$4 billion ($4.1 billion) Belle Plaine polygeneration facility, said there are plenty of potential customers for carbon-dioxide among Saskatchewan oil producers, who pump the gas into oil fields to boost production.
SaskPower last month unveiled its own plans to add carbon-equipment to its Boundary Dam coal-fired power plant. The C$1.4 billion project includes pipelines to carry carbon-dioxide to oil fields.
!ADVERTISEMENT!"We don't see any particular conflict," Jenkins said. "Theirs is a different process, much smaller, and theirs is a demonstration project while ours is a full-blown industrial complex."
When complete in 2013, the Belle Plaine plant will burn low-cost petroleum coke, a waste product from oil sands upgraders, to produce 300 megawatts of electricity along with hydrogen, carbon dioxide, steam and other products.
The Belle Plaine plant, which has yet to be given the official go-ahead by TransCanada, is located 50 kilometers (31 miles) west of Regina, Saskatchewan.
($1=$0.98 Canadian)
(Reporting by Scott Haggett; editing by Renato Andrade)
