Pembina Pipeline relaunches capital spending in Cypress County

By Medicine Hat News on December 15, 2020.

Pembina Pipeline will restart a substantial capital program at its straddle plant in Cypress County that was paused earlier this year along with another major pipeline project.

In its 2021 capital guidance released Monday, the company said it will move ahead with the two projects that were deferred as this energy sector was rocked by low prices and the pandemic last spring.

The $120-million cogeneration project at the company’s Empress complex will see a natural gas-fuelled power generating station built to supply the facility and re-use heat produced in its typical operations.

The company will also green light construction on its Phase VII Peace Pipeline expansion in northwest Alberta.

“These projects highlight the economic growth opportunities afforded by Pembina’s industry-leading footprint, even during a period of overall slower industry growth,” stated Pembina president Mick Dilger.

An application filed last week to the Alberta Utilities Commission states that a 45-megawatt, General Electric LM6000 turbine generator would be installed at the site with excess heat reused at the facility. The output would supply more than 90 per cent of the facility’s needs and use fuel extracted from the plant’s processing function. The company states the project will reduce comparative carbon dioxide emissions from the plant by 88,000 tonnes per year.

Earlier this fall it prorated that propane fractionation facility had been completed along with a new rail terminal to move the production from the plant via the Great Sandhills shoreline rail network in southwest Saskatchewan.

In total the company plans to spend C$785 million in 2021.

In March, Pembina deferred a total of $4.3 billion in capital projects, including three phases of Peace Pipeline expansion and final spending on a propane-to-plastics plant that is partly owned by the Canada Kuwait Petrochemical partnership. The company’s share of that project cost is $2.7 billion.

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