Watch How Quest CCS Works

The three component technologies of CCS are:

• carbon dioxide (CO₂) extraction from process gas streams;
• pipeline transportation, and;
• injection of CO₂ into a deep geological formation.

Shell’s patented ADIP-X amine-based capture technology[D1] has been a worldwide gas processing industry standard for extracting hydrogen sulphide and CO₂ from natural gas for more than 40 years. Fine-tuning the amine process to preferentially recover 98-per-cent-pure CO₂ from the upgrader’s hydrogen manufacturing units is the only new aspect of the Quest carbon capture unit.

Capture facilities use an amine solvent to capture the CO₂ from the process stream. The CO₂ is released from the amine by heating and then dehydrated and compressed. The compression reduces its volume by about 400 times turning it into a very dense fluid. The “liquid” CO₂ is then transported by an underground pipeline to between three to eight injection wells located north of the upgrader.

The natural gas industry also has decades of experience in injecting into underground geological formations. Although underground geological formations were first proposed by the U.S. Geological Survey in 1909 as the safest and most secure way to temporarily store large volumes of natural gas, the first commercial gas storage facility was opened in Welland County, Ontario in 1915.

Each of the CCS technologies has been used for decades. Quest combines them in an innovative way to manage CO₂ emissions from the Upgrading process.