A Canadian energy giant wants offset credits from the federal government for carbon dioxide it pipes in from the United States and stores underground in Saskatchewan, a newly released document shows.

Calgary-based EnCana Corp. lobbied Industry Minister Jim Prentice in January to broaden regulations so Canadian companies that ship carbon from the U.S. and store it in Canada qualify for offsets.

The Conservatives eventually plan to set up a carbon-trading scheme that grants offsets to companies who meet emissions targets. Firms that don't meet the targets can buy offsets from those with a surplus instead of reducing their emissions.

The Tories have said they will limit carbon trading to a Canada-only market.

EnCana's carbon capture and storage facility at its oilfield near Weyburn, Sask., won't be eligible for credits because it imports carbon from the U.S.

But the company says the Weyburn facility exemplifies the sort of technology Canada wants to promote abroad and should get credits.

Since 2000, more than 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide that would otherwise gone into the atmosphere have been stored in the porous rock below the ground.

"Weyburn is an exceptional international clean energy project that requires current and future policy recognition," says a proposal presented to Prentice prior to his Jan. 14 meeting with EnCana executive Gerry Protti.

The Canadian Press obtained the proposal, marked "confidential," under the Access to Information Act.

The document makes the case for Weyburn becoming "a flagship project for recognition within a future continental system by 2010."

EnCana says with both U.S. presidential candidates favouring a cap-and-trade system, it makes sense to lay the groundwork for a North American carbon market.

EnCana buys carbon dioxide that's captured and purified at a coal gasification plant in North Dakota, transports the gas by pipeline and pumps it into an underground reservoir.

There's also an economic benefit to doing this: Pumping carbon into aging fields such as Weyburn helps companies draw more oil out of the ground.

"This is a real, measurable reduction of carbon in the atmosphere," said EnCana spokesman Alan Boras.

"It is also emblematic of an international project whereby it is an ideal example of how an economic project can also have this beneficial element."

Clare Demerse, a policy analyst at the Pembina Institute, says granting offsets to the Weyburn project doesn't help Canada meet its own emissions targets.

"If we bring in emissions from the United States and give those credits in Canada's framework, then it takes Canada even farther away from meeting our target," she said.

"We're reducing emissions that, under the accounting system, come from another country and don't help us meet our own obligations."

It's not known how Prentice responded to EnCana's proposal. He was campaigning Tuesday and through an Industry Canada spokesman declined to comment.

Boras said the government hasn't told the company what it plans to do with the proposal.

However, the Conservatives have touted the experimental technology as a key piece of the climate change puzzle. The Tories spent $250 million in their most recent budget on a carbon capture and storage demonstration project in Saskatchewan.