Imperial Oil, one of Canada’s biggest oil producers and refiners, yesterday (25 August) announced it has committed to producing renewable diesel from vegetable oil at its Strathcona refinery near Edmonton. It is estimated that the site could produce around 20,000 barrels of the fuel – equating to 3 million litres of renewable diesel- per day by 2024.
The project is also expected to reduce annual carbon emissions by around 3m tonnes in the Canadian transportation sector.
“Imperial is excited to announce our plan to build the largest renewable diesel manufacturing facility in Canada,” said Brad Corson, Imperial CEO. “This world-class facility will be a significant value-generating, forward-looking project that brings together our proprietary technologies and refining scale to the benefit of the environment, the economy and local job creation. Today’s announcement further demonstrates Imperial’s commitment and support for Canada’s transition to lower-emission fuels, as well as Canada’s ambition to achieve net zero by 2050.”
ExxonMobil, which has a 69.9% majority stake in the company, has a renewable target of producing over 40,000 barrels of low emissions fuels every day by 2025 – a goal that Imperial’s latest project will support.
The group will also be harnessing hydrogen produced with carbon capture at this facility. According to its statement, the blue hydrogen and biofeedstock will be combined with a ‘proprietary catalyst’ to produce premium low-carbon diesel fuel.
The governments of Alberta and British Columbia have entered discussions with Imperial, with both governing bodies supporting the project under its low-carbon fuel legislation. The country’s Clean Fuel Standard, expected to be rolled out next year, is intended to boost investment into clean energy technologies, and establish a trading infrastructure to allow those suppliers that don’t meet emission reduction targets to purchase credits from greener fuel producers. The scheme is hoped to enable emission reductions of 30% below 2005 levels by 2030.