A Nova Scotia company will play a key role in helping North America heavy industry cut carbon emissions.
OTS Ltd. based in Sydney, Cape Breton, announced on July 30th that it had entered into a letter of intent with Svante Inc., Enbridge Inc. and Cross River Infrastructure Partners LLC to establish Cross Carbon Ventures (CCV) to explore development opportunities, build, own and operate carbon capture projects.
Matt Denney, general manager of OTS, told SaltWire this is a “great opportunity” for OTS to grow across North America and beyond as the global drive to reduce carbon emissions and reach net zero gains momentum .
Co-founded by Rodney Colbourne, Steve MacDougall and Steve Green, the Cape Breton company has been involved in several major infrastructure works since its inception in 2005 and has led the construction and commissioning of oil and gas, mining and utility projects.
Denney said the four companies working together in the newly formed CCV are a good match.
OTS, based in Nova Scotia, a commissioning and start-up service company in the energy and mining sectors, is one of the partners in the newly founded Venture Carbon Capture Development.
Cross River is a private equity firm that brings financing expertise; Enbridge has pipeline capacity, Svante brings the carbon capture technology and OTS adds the building and commissioning knowledge.
“And we all have different contacts from a business development perspective,” added Denney. “We all work for many customers who want to use CO2 capture technology. It goes well with OTS and it goes well with our partners. “
CCV President Aaron Ratner said in a press release that the company will explore commercial opportunities in North America to develop, build, own and operate carbon capture projects for high carbon industries looking to decarbonise their operations.
The company will particularly target cement, steelmaking, petroleum refining and large-scale hydrogen production.
“Providing carbon capture-as-a-service offering to large industrial emitters will be an essential part of scaling the carbon capture industry along with carbon hubs to meet global decarbonization goals,” said Aaron Ratner, president by CCV.
Matt Denney is General Manager of Offshore Technical Services (OTS) based in Sydney, Cape Breton.
CCV will use technology developed by British Columbia company Svante Inc. Earlier this month, the federal government announced $ 25 million in funding for this company as part of the Strategic Innovation Fund’s Net Zero Accelerator program. The money will enable Svante to set up a center of excellence in the use and storage of carbon capture in Vancouver, BS, which will allow the company to expand production operations to test its proprietary carbon capture technology.
“CCV is an ideal partnership to commercialize our technology and offer a zero carbon solution,” said Claude Letourneau, President and CEO of Svante.
Some projects have already been implemented with Svante technology, others are in progress.
The CO2MENT Pilot Plant Project – a partnership between Lafarge (Holcim) and TOTAL SA – operates a one-tonne-per-day (TPD) plant in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada that injects captured CO2 back into concrete while a 30 tPD demonstration plant was completed in 2019 at an industrial facility in Lloydminster, Saskatchewan.
A 25-tPD demonstration facility is currently being planned and built at Chevron USA near Bakersfield, California, and several feasibility studies for commercial-scale carbon capture projects – ranging from 500 to 4,500 TPD – are being conducted in North America and Europe.
Svantes Technologie – Carbon Capture Video Capture from Svante on Vimeo.
OTS is keen to start working on some of these projects, Denney said.
“We’ll be there to get the technology up and running to make sure it works,” Denney said. “We want to get them under control, let them work as we expect them to, and from there let the ball run downhill.”
Once you have a track record, others will call, he said.
The general manager of OTS added that the company is part of the CCV partnership to seize the opportunities that will arise as heavy industry intensifies efforts to reduce its carbon footprint.
“There’s a lot of work to be done and we’re just scratching the surface,” Denney said, noting that capturing carbon is a $ 3 trillion industry. “We are very happy to be a part of it.”
About Cross Carbon Ventures
The partners
Svante
Svante offers companies in emission-intensive industries a practicable option to record large CO2 emissions from existing infrastructure, either for safe storage or for further industrial use in a closed cycle.
With the ability to capture CO2 directly from industrial sources at less than half the investment cost of existing solutions, Svante makes CO2 capture on an industrial scale a reality.
Svante’s technology is currently being deployed on a pilot scale by industry leaders in the energy and cement manufacturing sectors.
Svante has attracted more than $ 195 million in investments since its inception in 2007, including the most recent investment of $ 25 million from the Government of Canada’s Strategic Innovation Fund.
www.svanteinc.com
Enbridge
Enbridge Inc. is a leading North American energy infrastructure company.
His core businesses include:
Liquids Pipelines, which carry approximately 25 percent of the crude oil produced in North America;
Gas Transmission and Midstream, which carries approximately 20 percent of the natural gas consumed in the United States;
Gas distribution and storage serving approximately 3.8 million end customers in Ontario and Quebec;
Renewable power generation, which generates around 1,766 MW of net electricity from renewable sources in North America and Europe.
The company’s common stock trades on the Toronto and New York Stock Exchanges under the symbol ENB.
www.enbridge.com
Cross River Infrastructure Partner
Cross River Infrastructure Partners LLC is a platform of development companies deploying industry-leading climate technologies and sustainable infrastructure projects in carbon capture and use, sustainable protein, clean fuels and clean energy.
Cross River is focused on developing and commercializing early and unique projects in North America.
www.crossriverllc.com
OTS
OTS is a leading provider of pre-commissioning, commissioning and commissioning, as well as operation and maintenance services for the energy, mining and utility sectors.
Founded in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in 2005, the company has four locations in North America and hundreds of skilled employees
OTS has worked on major investment projects since its inception in 2005.
www.otsl.ca