Billed as the world’s greenest refinery, a B.C. group is pushing for a $10-billion facility along the province’s northern coast it says would dramatically reduce environmental hazards while producing about 3,000 permanent jobs.
Pacific Future Energy (PFE), which launched in Vancouver in January, announced June 10 it’s prepared to build a refinery capable of processing 200,000 to 1 million barrels of bitumen a day to tap into the Asian market.
PFE chairman Samer Salameh told Business In Vancouver one of the biggest challenges is convincing First Nations groups and environmentalists to support the project.
“We’re not here to ship crude oil. We’re here spending probably another $3 billion beyond what a normal refinery would cost to make this the cleanest refinery ever built,” he said.
“This is the least you could do for the birthplace of Greenpeace.”
Refined bitumen would be less harmful to the environment in the event of a spill or leak than crude product. Meanwhile, PFE said the refinery would be a near zero net carbon (NZNC) facility.
Salameh said PFE has been consulting with engineering firms the last few months and a preliminary design for the refinery has been completed.
“There’s been a lot of talk about a refinery in B.C. for a while. While others talk, we’ve been…working away,” he said, adding it would still be about seven years before the facility was operational if the government approved the project.
Last year, B.C. media mogul David Black pitched a $25-billion refinery project off the province’s northern coast.
The federal government is expected to make a decision in the coming days on whether to approve Enbridge’s Enbridge (TSX, NYSE:ENB) proposed Northern Gateway pipeline.
The $7-billion would run from northern Alberta to Kitimat, B.C., but the proposal has been met with resistance from many northern residents as well as First Nations groups.
