A project to capture and store carbon dioxide at the border between Saskatchewan and North Dakota is getting an extra $2.2 million from the Canadian government.

Ottawa's new contribution has been earmarked for research during the final phase of the International Energy Agency's Weyburn-Midale carbon monitoring and storage project, Natural Resources Minister Christian Paradis announced Tuesday at the end of two days of clean-energy talks in Washington.

A CO2 boost for oilfields

Before being pumped into oilfields, carbon dioxide is put under high pressure, becoming a "supercritical fluid" that has the density of a liquid but expands like a gas. That makes it easier for the carbon dioxide to penetrate the reservoir, where it becomes dissolved in the oil. That makes the oil less viscous so that it flows out more easily. The extra pressure from the carbon dioxide also squeezes the oil out of rock pores toward the well.

Carbon dioxide that gets pumped out with the oil is injected back into the reservoir, where it is trapped and stored.

The U.S. announced it is kicking another $3 million into the project, which pipes carbon dioxide produced by the Dakota Gasification Company's coal gasification facility in Beulah, N.D., to Cenovus Energy's Weyburn oilfield and Apache Canada's Midale oilfield in southern Saskatchewan.

The carbon dioxide is pumped into the oilfields, where it boosts production from depleting wells.

The $80-million project, launched in 2000, has so far stored 18 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, the government reports.

At Tuesday's meeting, Paradis also announced three pilot projects to boost energy efficiency in factories and other buildings. The government will:

  • Work with the Ontario Power Authority to help five Ontario manufacturing facilities implement an international energy standard, known as ISO 50001, that is scheduled to be released in 2011.
  • Work jointly with the U.S. and technology company 3M to boost energy efficiency at one of its Canadian plants.
  • Test the new energy standard in Natural Resources Canada buildings.

The meeting in Washington, hosted by U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, brought together energy ministers, senior officials and corporate executives from more than 20 countries.