If approved, ATCO's proposed pipeline project will consist of approximately 230 kilometres of natural gas pipeline from west of Edmonton to Fort Saskatchewan, just northeast of the provincial capital.Louis Oliver/The Globe and Mail
Calgary-based ATCO Energy Systems Ltd. has taken a major step forward on its massive $2.8-billion natural gas infrastructure project, submitting the first regulatory application for its Yellowhead Mainline pipeline.
The pipeline’s planned capacity has already grown since ATCO announced the project in May. If approved, it will consist of approximately 230 kilometres of natural gas pipeline from west of Edmonton to Fort Saskatchewan, just northeast of the provincial capital. The pipeline is expected to have the capability to deliver up to 1.1 billion cubic feet a day of natural gas, reinforcing Alberta’s natural-gas network for its growing population and industries.
Wayne Stensby, the chief operating officer of ATCO Energy Systems, told The Globe and Mail that the project emphasizes not just the importance of natural gas to Alberta’s economy, but the versatility of the fossil fuel as well.
Yellowhead Mainline, which is essentially a massive expansion of Alberta’s existing natural gas transmission system, is the largest infrastructure project in ATCO’s history. The plan is to use it to pipe gas to petrochemical companies as the building blocks for their products, to building material companies for low-carbon cement, and to companies manufacturing hydrogen products and their derivatives – many of which will be incorporating carbon capture into their operations to lower greenhouse-gas emissions.
One of those customers is Dow Chemical, for its Path2Zero project – the planned expansion and retrofit of an existing ethylene plant outside Edmonton with carbon-capture technology so it can triple production by the end of the decade.
ATCO chief executive Nancy Southern said in May that she hoped the Yellowhead Mainline project would also boost development in Alberta’s Industrial Heartland, a region in Fort Saskatchewan where more than 40 companies produce fuels, fertilizers, power and petrochemicals.
“What I’m really excited about is seeing the demand for natural gas really coming to fruition,” she said at the time. “We’re going to need a lot of natural gas for hydrogen in the future, so we’re hoping that that pipe is going to be big enough.”
Hydrogen is light, storable and energy-dense. When burned, it produces no direct greenhouse-gas emissions, making it an attractive form of decarbonization. One way to produce hydrogen is by using high-temperature steam to produce hydrogen from a methane source such as natural gas.
Both the federal and Alberta’s governments have 2050 net-zero greenhouse-gas emission targets. Mr. Stensby said Tuesday the Yellowhead Mainline will be “an integral part” of a lower-carbon energy ecosystem.
“If you look at the ultimate use of the natural gas, I think it fits very well into an ever-reducing carbon economy,” he said.
“That, in some ways, is the advantage of the Alberta Industrial Heartland. There are a number of these projects and a number of parties that are working together to bring some of the best minds in the world together to continue to create the energy and the products that we all need, with lower carbon waste.”
The original blueprint for Yellowhead Mainline had the system running about 200 kilometres, with a maximum capacity of one billion cubic feet a day of natural gas. Mr. Stensby said the preliminary design identified a number of potential routes of the project, which will likely make it longer and larger than first estimated.
And while infrastructure projects can often exceed their deadlines and budgets, Mr. Stensby said he’s hopeful that Alberta’s “constructive regulatory regime” will help avoid any massive hurdles, while still giving Yellowhead Mainline the appropriate level of scrutiny.
“If you compare it to perhaps some of the other large projects that have occurred in the last few years, in many ways there are some advantages,” he said. “The terrain is a little less challenging; we’re not having to go through the mountains, for example, or other areas. So we remain very optimistic.”
ATCO Energy Systems expects Yellowhead Mainline construction to begin in 2026 and the project to be on-stream in the fourth quarter of 2027.