The old field currently produces

Agrium produces 1,500 tonnes a day of pure CO2, and that will be the first gas to be used in the new line. North West will produce about 3,500 tonnes a day.Together, the two plants will send about 1.8 million tonnes per year into a pipeline that is designed to handle up to 15 million tonnes per year.There is plenty of space for more industries to add waste gas, which was the plan when the Alberta government agreed to spend $495 million over 10 years to support the ACTL. The estimated budget is $1.2 billion for capital and operating costs over that period. Ottawa has also kicked in $63 million."We will have two compressors linked to the refinery, one on-site to bring up the pressure from probably two (pounds per square inch) to 200. Then we have a second compressor off the site to bring that up to 2,000 psi, which is the pipeline pressure," said Cole.The 240-kilometre long pipeline to the Lacombe area in central Alberta can be constructed in one season.

There the compressed gas will be forced underground into a depleted oilfield at Clive, stimulating new production through enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods.Last week, Enhance spent $15 million to purchase the field from Santonia Energy. The old field currently produces just 470 barrels of oil and gas per day, but using CO2 will bump that to about 10,000 bpd in the initial phase of the project."We can't disclose details, but the rule of thumb for EOR is one tonne of CO2 will produce two barrels," she said.The Clive field has been producing light oil since the 1950s. It could produce 25 million barrels more over the next 20 years with EOR.Enhance plans to use 20 CO2 injector wells and 80 producing wells to recover the oil in what Cole says is a cost-effective operation."We have no exploration costs and the infrastructure is all in place. Plus we know this is an excellent reservoir geologically for our EOR purposes," she added.Years from now, when the carbon pipeline is near capacity as other firms opt to "green" their products by separating and shipping out their CO2, Enhance could be producing up to 80,000 bpd of high quality, light oil.