April 4, 2022                                          Calgary, Alberta                                    Natural Resources Canada

The Government of Canada is making investments to enhance Canada’s competitive advantage, diversify market opportunities, create good middle-class jobs and achieve our emissions reduction targets.

Today, the Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of Natural Resources Canada, announced a combined investment of over $7.5 million to four organizations in Alberta that are advancing emerging clean technologies to grow our economy and help Canada meet its environmental targets.

These projects include:
●        $3,000,000 to Suncor Energy Inc. in Fort McMurray, Alberta, to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Permanent Aquatic Storage Structure to accelerate the dewatering and removal of contaminants in fluid tailings and, combined with watershed design, to create a self-sustaining boreal pit lake ecosystem;

●        $2,000,000 to Cenovus Energy Inc. in Calgary, Alberta, to demonstrate the effectiveness of a partial-upgrading process which is intended to reduce diluent use and the greenhouse gas emissions related to crude transportation;

●        $1,500,000 to MEG Energy Corp. in Christina Lake, Alberta, to prove the commercial viability of a process to reduce the viscosity of heavy, bituminous oil through on-site pilot testing; and,

●        $1,050,000 to Seal Well Inc. in Calgary, Alberta, to demonstrate the use of a bismuth-based metal alloy as a more effective sealant to permanently prevent the leakage of gases from producing and abandoned oil and gas wells.

Federal funding was provided through the Clean Growth Program, a $155-million investment in clean technology research, development and demonstration projects in three Canadian sectors: energy, mining and forestry. The program launched in 2017–18 and sunsets this year.

These investments demonstrate the Government of Canada’s ongoing commitment to supporting innovative projects in the energy, mining and forestry sectors to create clean, sustainable and competitive natural resource sectors while reducing the environmental impacts of operations and fighting climate change.