An Interview with Kiewit: What is Next for North American Energy Construction Projects?
Kiewit is one of North America’s largest construction and engineering organizations. As such, the company has a unique perspective on the pipeline of new infrastructure projects in the United States and Canada.
To get a window into what is on the horizon for large energy infrastructure projects, Kiewit’s Matthew Thomas, Vice President, Carbon Capture and Travis Shearer, Vice President, Markets & Strategy, Oil, Gas and Chemicals join this week’s podcast.
Here are some of the questions Peter and Jackie ask them: To what extent are inflation and higher interest rates impacting the pipeline of new infrastructure projects? What is the outlook for carbon capture projects in North America? Do you expect blue and green hydrogen projects to be constructed? How has the interest in North American LNG changed since Russia invaded Ukraine? What other types of clean energy projects are under development?
Other content referenced in this week’s podcast includes:
- From the Energyphile collection, the vignette of “The Methane Pioneer” about an LNG tanker that departed the United States for Europe in 1959.
- Learn more about Kiewit at: kiewit.com/
Kiewit is one of the largest construction and EPC (Engineering, Procurement, Construction) companies in North America. Whether it’s an oil and gas project, chemical, or even solar – Kiewit is one of the most commonly hired companies to get the project built.
So, what does Kiewit see in terms of current and forecast projects is a key economic indicator.
In this episode Jackie and Peter talk with two leaders at Kiewit – Matthew Thomas Vice President Carbon Capture in Kansas, and Travis Shearer Vice President markets and strategy oil, gas, and chemicals in Houston. What do they see happening? Are things moving forward or is there a slow-down in final investment decisions?
“I think it’s a bit of both,” says Travis. “When you look at rising interest rates and inflation… it will have an impact on projects that require debt financing. It’s obviously getting more expensive. That puts pressure on a financial model. But there is a lot of activity that we’re seeing in the marketplace. We are seeing increased activity. LNG is obviously picking up driven by the unfortunate situation in Ukraine. We continue to see power projects like solar and wind and offshore wind.”
Projects are going to take longer and cost more. Smart teams are going to look for ways to reduce costs. What does that look like?
“That’s a really difficult question,” says Matthew. “At the end of the day, no two projects are the same. With carbon capture projects (for example), there’s really three things that drive the cost. One is the carbon capture island itself; one is the site-specific requirements, and then the last is what I would call market forces. The carbon capture piece is the part that’s really, pretty easy to think about. That’s the part that does carbon capture. The integration is going to be things like, do you have available space on a site directly adjacent? If not, how far do you have to run the duct work?”
“There are other things like steam integration, thermal integration with the facility that can dramatically reduce the cost if you have some of those utilities available versus having to build them new. And then the last piece is really the market force. That’s escalation, that’s labour availability, marriage shop, open shop, building trades, those kinds of things. But what I would share is that the US department of energy has done a number of studies, the cost curve is coming down on liquid solvent technologies. I think there’s a very positive trend there for the market.”
You get the sense there is momentum in the United States for carbon capture facilities that is really starting to build.
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Episode 159 Transcript
Disclosure:
The information and opinions presented in this ARC Energy Ideas podcast are provided for informational purposes only and are subject to the disclaimer link in the show notes.
Announcer:
This is the ARC Energy Ideas podcast with Peter Tertzakian and Jackie Forrest. Exploring trends that influence the energy business.
Jackie Forrest:
Welcome to the ARC Energy Ideas podcast. I’m Jackie Forrest.
Peter Tertzakian:
And I’m Peter Tertzakian and welcome back. So, January 25th, 1959. You know what happened then?
Jackie Forrest:
I have no idea.
Peter Tertzakian:
That was the first sailing of an LNG tanker from Louisiana to Canvey Island just outside London in the UK. A lot of people think that LNG from the US Gulf coast to Europe is something new, but it’s not, it goes all the way back to 1959. That was the first sailing. And if you’re interested, there’s a card in my energy file collection that we’ll post, and you can go take a look at that.
Jackie Forrest:
Yeah, I think we’ll put a link to that in the show notes too, so people can check that out. But that is interesting because, obviously, there was a period when North America thought we were going to import, that we were building gasification terminals. And now here we are, as we talked about on our podcast several weeks ago, potentially having a whole bunch more LNG export capacity being built out of the United States to send gas to Europe.
Peter Tertzakian:
Well, if there’s one thing, we know about the energy businesses is there’s always these twists and turns and reversals of fortune. So, we’re going to talk about that today. And we are going talk about it today with some special guests. We have two Matthew Thomas Vice President Carbon Capture at Kiewit and also from Kiewit is Travis Shearer Vice President markets and strategy oil, gas, and chemicals. So welcome Matthew and Travis.
Travis Shearer:
Thank you.
Matthew Thomas:
Good afternoon. Thanks for the opportunity to participate.
Jackie Forrest:
Okay. Well, and I understand you’re joining us from Houston and Kansas. We were excited to get the American perspective on what’s going on in the US around LNG, hydrogen and even CCS. But before we get there, maybe give our audience a bit of your background career highlights and how both of you came to join Kiewit.
Peter Tertzakian:
Why don’t you start Travis?
Travis Shearer:
Sure. Well, again, thank you very much for taking the time to having this conversation today. So, I joined Kiewit almost four years ago. I spent the first 15 years of my career at another EPC company located here in Houston but have lived all over the world. A lot of the energy hotspots in middle east, a couple of times. Back in Houston, Washington, D.C. A little bit all over the place in terms of residency like so many people in our industry. But, joined Kiewit about four years ago and I’m in our oil, gas and chemical business and lead our markets and strategy group. So, the identification of opportunities, but also the commercial negotiation side.
Jackie Forrest:
Great. How about you, Matthew?
Matthew Thomas:
I’ve been with Kiewit for 22 years. It’s the only place I’ve ever worked. Had a very normal Kiewit career. Multiple rotations, I’ve done engineering, construction, commissioning estimating, project management. And for the last six years have been doing carbon capture work. So, it’s been really interesting to see this nascent market really take off over the last couple of years. In addition to that at different times had some engineering responsibility over small part of our hydrogen business, electrification and other emerging markets that have become quite topical in the last couple of years.
Peter Tertzakian:
Well, there’s just so much going on carbon capture, LNG. There’s all this talk about generalities of the energy transition, bending down emission curves, but we’re really fortunate to have both of you because you do the engineering and the implementation procurement all on the ground. And that’s what we want to talk about. Is it a reality of actually building this stuff out and what it takes to ultimately give to the consumer, whether it’s here in North America or halfway around the world, cheap, clean, safe, and secure energy in these very uncertain times.
Jackie Forrest:
Before we move on to the topics for today, I think it’s important to talk about who Kiewit is. You’re a very big constructor in North America, but I’m not sure everyone in our audience would actually be familiar with you. And they may be surprised about how big you are. So, tell us a little bit about that and how the company got started.
Travis Shearer:
Kiewit is a privately held company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. We’re an old company. So, we were started in 1884. So, 136 years old. Started out as a legacy construction, primarily focused on roads and bridges and civil infrastructure. And over the years as the business evolved, so did our solutions. And I’d say the last probably 40 years or so, we’ve really transitioned into the EPC side of the business. So, the engineering and procurement and the construction. And that really allowed Kiewit to control our destiny on these projects and have a better product at the end of the day. Both safety and productivity. So, in terms of size, we do about 50-million-man hours a year give or take. So, getting up there in the overall size.
Jackie Forrest:
So, are you one of the largest construction and EPC companies in North America?
Travis Shearer:
We are a large EPC firm in North America. So, the ENR rankings that came out for 2022, we were one of the larger EPC contractors.
Peter Tertzakian:
So, whether it’s an oil and gas or chemical, or even solar company. Companies come to you like general contractors to basically engineer design and build the project.
Travis Shearer:
Yes, that’s absolutely correct.
Peter Tertzakian:
Great. Well, let’s talk about the focus areas that we want to discuss today. So, let’s talk about some broad infrastructure trends.
Jackie Forrest:
Well, let’s talk about it. Based on the size of Kiewit and all the things that you see, could you tell us a little bit about what you’re seeing in terms of the broad economy? Obviously, COVID was difficult period, but now we’re facing situation of very high inflation and even higher interest rates. We’re learning that the central banks are going to have to increase interest rates and that can affect the financing for some of these large projects. So, just some thoughts on where we are today and how that may be affecting the projects. Are they actually moving forward or are they starting to see a slowdown in the final investment decisions?
Travis Shearer:
So, I think it’s a bit of both. When you look at rising interest rates and inflation and escalation, I think you have to look at all of those combined because they’re really hard to draw distinct lines in how they impact us. So anytime you are increasing interest rates, you are going to be impacting, or it will have an impact on projects that require debt financing. It’s obviously getting more expensive. That puts pressure on a financial model. That’s the simple math of it. But there is a lot of activity that we’re seeing in the marketplace. When you look broadly across the energy side of the business, we are seeing increased activity. LNG is obviously picking up driven by the unfortunate situation in Ukraine.
Travis Shearer:
We continue to see power projects like solar and wind and offshore wind. There’s a lot of activity there as well. And then some of the traditional markets that are always moving forward around petrochemicals, we are seeing some continued movement there. I think some of the challenges that we’re going to continue to see isn’t so much at the owner level it’s as we are trying to build these projects or do the estimating, the supply chain for complex machinery that is incorporated into a project has so many tiers of suppliers and sub-suppliers, and the ability for that chain to have a lot of certainty in their costs because of inflation and escalation and to an interest rates, that’s one of the areas that we’re really making sure we have a sound approach to.
Peter Tertzakian:
So, the input costs, speaking of inflation they really skyrocketed the commodities like steel and copper and nickel and the whole gamut even would. I’m hearing more recently that things are slowing down, and the prices are starting to come down but tell us how much of a factor those input costs are. And what’s going on out there.
Matthew Thomas:
The input costs are significant to every project that we have. Well, it may be true. I think different people would have a different opinion about escalation and stuff and where it’s headed at this point. That’s just one of the components in pricing. A shipping container, for example, that used to cost $4,000 to get something from Asia to the US is sitting around $30,000 for the same today. There’re multiple components that are driving project costs. So, we’re going to continue to see some challenges in that arena for a while.
Travis Shearer:
Shipping containers is a great example. Shanghai, when they came out of lockdown that’s had an impact on that supply chain that goes all the way back to loading container ships. So, it’ll be interesting to see how that evolves over the next couple of months.
Jackie Forrest:
So, your clients are having to expect that projects are going to take longer and cost more. But still, some are moving forward with the projects despite those uncertainties.
Travis Shearer:
Yeah. I think we’re continuing to see… And we have to be creative in developing solutions that are going to work for clients and work for the supply chain. And so, we spend a lot of time on that.
Jackie Forrest:
Well, let’s talk a little bit about some of the projects that are on that website. So, we will put a link to your website on the show notes. And you’ve got some really interesting projects from all sorts of different areas, with solar, battery, renewables. But I wanted to talk a little bit about the Petro Nova Carbon Capture project. We found that pretty interesting. Tell us a little bit about this. This is one of the big CCS projects that’s underway already. And I think in Canada here, we’re about to embark, we hope, on some big CCS projects as well. And just learn a little bit about that project in terms of how long it takes and what it’s doing.
Matthew Thomas:
The Petro Nova project was an extremely successful project that Kiewit participated in. We were partnered with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and supporting NRG on that project. At the end of the day, the project exceeded its design basis. It was on time, on cost and on schedule. And really the safety record was outstanding as well. It was really the first of many opportunities that we’ve pursued with Mitsubishi on post combustion capture. Through their continued development of their post combustion, carbon capture technology, coupled with our constructability input and cost and schedule optimizations. Ultimately, we’ve seen really nice reductions in cost for carbon capture. And with respect to Canada, we’ve got a number of opportunities that we’re looking at in Canada, that we’re very excited about. Some that are a little more near term, and some that are probably a little bit further out that we are very bullish on the opportunity to participate in those projects.
Jackie Forrest:
So, this was CCS that was on a power generation station. Am I right? And was it using natural gas as the fuel for the power generation station?
Matthew Thomas:
It was a power generation project. It was at the W.A Parish facility in Texas. It a coal-fired power plant. And ultimately the steam generation source for the facility came from a natural gas fired combustion carbon.
Jackie Forrest:
Okay. A little bit of both. And with the post combustion technology you talked about, is that still a mean-based system. Using more… I thought it was for Mitsubishi, but using the traditional way of doing that, not a new technology.
Matthew Thomas:
Yes, that’s right. It’s a liquid solvent technology. It’s an aiming based, it’s a proprietary formula that Mitsubishi has. At the end of the day, Amy based technologies are very well understood. They’ve been around for over 70 years, but MHI’s proprietary solvent does have some special sauce to it that helps create better properties to resist degradation of the product and to utilize less energy in the process of capturing and releasing the CO2.
Peter Tertzakian:
I’ve pick up on that. Because you mentioned that the reductions in costs, as you learned how to do these things, and you just mentioned the secret sauce. Could you project a trajectory forward as to how much more cost reduction we can expect as you build subsequent plants going forward?
Matthew Thomas:
That’s a really difficult question because at the end of the day, no two projects are the same. With these carbon capture projects, there’s really three things that drive the cost. One is the carbon capture island itself. One is the site-specific requirements. And then the last is what I would call market forces. The carbon capture piece is the part that’s really, pretty easy to think about. That’s the part that does carbon capture. The integration is going to be things like, “Do you have available space on site directly adjacent? If not, how far do you have to run the duct work?” Because that’s a significant cost that’s really not adding value to the project. We’ve got projects that clients are saying, “Hey, we need you to go rip the top off of a hill over there. There’s a lot of rock blasting and stuff.”
Matthew Thomas:
That’s a lot of cost that doesn’t add value. There’s other things like steam integration, thermal integration with the facility that can dramatically reduce the cost if you have some of those utilities available versus having to build them new. And then the last piece is really the market force. That’s escalation, that’s labor availability, marriage shop, open shop, building trades, those kinds of things. So, it’s really hard to give you that piece. But what I would share is that the US department of energy has done a number of studies… Funded a number of studies and if you do look at these, the cost curve is coming down on liquid solvent technologies. I think there’s a very positive trend there for the market.
Peter Tertzakian:
So, the technology costs are likely to come down. The process costs, we’ll call them, process technology, but there’s site specific issues that may offset that or labor or whatever.
Matthew Thomas:
Absolutely. Skyrocketing inflation like we’ve seen the last 12 months. That’s unfortunately something that can overcome some of the savings that happen through the technology optimization.
Jackie Forrest:
So, Matthew, I have a follow-up question in terms of how long did it take from originally conceiving this idea that they wanted to do a CCS project to operations? And I say that because right now in Canada, we’ve got a lot of debate about wanting to do CCS by 2030. And I just wonder if it’s even possible in that timeframe to permit and build a project.
Matthew Thomas:
Absolutely. That’s enough time to do projects. These projects, generally, tend to follow project development process. It’s very common in the oil and gas industry feed or a fell front end loading stage gate process where you go through and are going through scoping and project validation and design. And as you add more definition to it, you advance that to a point and then a final investment decision is made. That process of getting through all that generally takes a couple of years, and then the project itself, obviously depending on the size will take a couple of years as well. You might find for the right opportunities. You might be able to get something done as quick as… I’m going to be a little bit optimistic, but maybe four years on really small projects and you would be in the eight to 10 years for really large projects.
Peter Tertzakian:
So, Matthew, give us a sense of the scale or momentum in the United States with these carbon capture facilities.
Matthew Thomas:
There’s a lot going on right now. The federal government has pledged through the Department of Energy. The carbon capture program started in early 2000s with something called carbon safe, where the government started assessing the geology of the United States for sequestration. And has continued to invest in that program plus carbon capture itself over the years. A number of studies have been done and a couple of projects are in place, including the Petra Nova project which we did. Over the last couple years of the amount of interest has gone from projects that we’ve been looking at one a quarter doing studies and things like that to as of today we’re getting multiple inquiries a week for support to our clients. And we’ve got a couple of projects that we’ve done the full project development feed process and have multiple projects waiting for a financial investment decision.
Matthew Thomas:
At the end of the day, what everyone’s waiting for right now is for a little bit more clarity around the 45Q tax credit because that has the opportunity in the last bills of the build back better that didn’t pass to increase up to $85 a ton. If we do see that increase happen in the US here in the next, say before the midterm elections or before the end of the year, we do expect several of those projects to move forward. And we expect that to really be the opening for this market to really take off.
Jackie Forrest:
So, let’s talk a little bit about hydrogen. Do you expect any hydrogen projects to be built in the US? And if so, could you just tell us a little bit about how that hydrogen might be consumed?
Travis Shearer:
So, there’s a lot of different kinds of hydrogen out there. Right now, most of the hydrogen produced is what they call Grey. So, it’s natural gas base without carbon capture. And it’s used in a large number of industrial processes. There is a push to add carbon capture or as they’re building new hydrogen capacity to add carbon capture to that and make it blue. And then they capture and sequester the CO2 in other places around the country. So, there is a large move to blue hydrogen.
Travis Shearer:
And then beyond blue hydrogen, you can use the hydrogen to make ammonia, which a lot of countries in Asia are looking at to co-fire in a power plant or uses a shipping fuel. So, there’s a lot of moves in that area, which continue to be pretty interesting. And the other aspect of blue hydrogen is that if you replace gray hydrogen with blue hydrogen, even in a traditional manufacturing process, you do clean your process up. So, there’s a lot of activity, a lot of interest in replacing the gray hydrogen with blue hydrogen. And then there’s the other aspect, which is green hydrogen. And I’ll let I’ll let Matt talk a little bit about that.
Matthew Thomas:
So really seeing a lot of interest in green hydrogen as Travis note, the uses are the same where we’re seeing probably the most opportunity is…. There’s a lot of pilot plants going right now. People that are looking to understand how hydrogen can transform their business on a very small scale, and then using it for co-firing in a power turbine or something like that. But also, for high value uses like green hydrogen into chemical production. Those are really the two places we’re seeing it the most and ultimately, we’ll continue to see. In the near term, my personal opinion is we’ll see more carbon capture and then we’ll see more fuel switching as the next decade progresses.
Peter Tertzakian:
Travis, you talked about the blue hydrogen, which comes from natural gas, CH4, which was the methane molecule. So, you get the H out of the CH4. Green hydrogen comes from the water molecule H2O. So, with an electrolyzer, Matthew, can you first of all, talk about the water issue because I’ve had several people ask questions about that. They’re, “Okay, where do you get the water from?” Nothing comes for free in the world of energy or from an environmental perspective in terms of scaling up, especially.
Matthew Thomas:
Ultimately, the water is one of two feed stocks into an electrolyzer. Water consumption is going to be a big issue. The electrolyzers do require some level of cleanliness in the water that they intake. So, it will put additional priority on water, which is, in some areas of the US and Canada has some scarcity to it right now. That will continue to put additional pressure on that market. And so we do continue to see beyond just the use here, but we are seeing significant growth in the water market across North America today.
Peter Tertzakian:
And some parts of the United States, like the Southwest are drought. So, this is not a trivial issue in terms of where the water comes from if you want to scale up these hydrogen facilities.
Jackie Forrest:
And then you need clean electricity too. It’s not green hydrogen if you’re not using clean electricity and there’s not so many sources of that either today. But it is interesting that you’re saying people are finding areas where they already have a use for hydrogen and just trying to make it cleaner, more pilots to understand it better. So, it looks a little earlier stage. Now, something that I think is later stage potentially is the LNG business. So, the US is already shipping in the range of 11 or 12 BCF per day, out of the US Gulf coast area to overseas markets. A lot of it going to Europe today and the expectation is, there’s going to be a lot more LNG projects to meet Europe’s demand for gas. So maybe give us a sense of how you’re seeing the LNG market in the US right now.
Travis Shearer:
The driver for this recent demand is obviously the unfortunate situation in Ukraine. But there has been a lot of interest, a lot of activity in the LNGG market here in the US and in Canada. And I think that one of the key things that off takers are looking for is projects that are permitted because that is one of the long lead items in a project like this. And there are several projects that are permitted, so they obviously have an advantage. So, yes, we are seeing a lot of activity, a lot of interest in LNG. There are a couple of opportunities that when we look at the field that we would rate a little higher and obviously those are projects that we’re preparing to pursue or are currently pursuing.
Jackie Forrest:
Now I have the impression that the Americans can build LNG much faster than in Canada. And we only have our one LNG Canada project going off our west coast, which is more than 10 years here. And that includes the time for the regulatory review and everything. About how long would it take, do you think, if a project had to go through the permitting, to actually shipping LNG?
Travis Shearer:
It depends on the structure of the project. And I’m not trying to be evasive on the answer. Some owners have a scale strategy, some owners have a smaller packaged unit strategy. So, obviously, a larger project. A large, let’s say a five or a six-ton train, could take longer than a smaller packaged unit that has smaller capacity, but you can move forward fairly quickly, install it in a shorter timeframe. So, there’s two separate strategies and there are multiple projects that are following each of those.
Jackie Forrest:
So, what would the approximate range of times between the small to the big is it… My impression is it’s five years or something to build a facility in the US. And it’s double that in Canada. Do you think that’s a decent assumption?
Travis Shearer:
I’m looking at some of the recent… like the Venture Global Calcasieu Pass, I think it was from FID to first drop. It was 29 months. I think that’s what the press release said. That’s pretty quick.
Peter Tertzakian:
That’s pretty quick. Two and a half years from final investment decision at the boardroom table to actually shipping. That’s pretty fast. We’re not that fast here.
Jackie Forrest:
Now to be fair we’d have to build a big pipeline to get something like a 700-kilometer pipeline to get between the gas field and the facility. My impression is these American LNG facilities are not having to build those big pipelines to get feed gas.
Travis Shearer:
They do but they’re shorter. They’re going to be miles, not 100 of miles to reach a source of the gas. Now there are projects that are installing additional pipelines from the Permian and the Delaware and areas like that. But you’re right. If you look at an LNG Canada where you’re crossing the Canadian Rockies versus doing a lateral to an existing line, that’s a big difference.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah. That’s actually two mountain rangers. You got to go to the coastal mountains as well. But once we have that pipe then adding additional trains becomes easier.
Travis Shearer:
Correct.
Peter Tertzakian:
So, we’ve talked about LHG, hydrogen, carbon capture. What other significant areas of energy infrastructure investment are you seeing in the pursuit of decarbonization?
Travis Shearer:
The sustainable fuels market has had a lot of activity over the last couple of years. There have been some recent announcements by companies like P 66 and marathon Valero obviously has a large facility in Louisiana.
Peter Tertzakian:
So, you’re talking like biofuels? Is that what you’re-
Travis Shearer:
It’s renewable diesel. So, it’s banking in things like used cooking oil, animal fats and corn oil, soybean oil, and converting that into diesel. So, it’s chemically identical to petroleum-based diesel. So, you don’t have a blend wall you would have with certain biofuels, but it is very low carbon and sometimes negative carbon intensity. So, there is a lot of interest in that, but it also relies on the agricultural market, which is competing with other aspects of global events. Obviously, there’s a large volume of grains that come out of the Ukraine and Russia, and there’s a potential that those won’t be produced this year. So, what impact does that have on this market? And do you take feed stock that was going through renewable diesel or sustainable aviation fuel and put that on the table somewhere?
Peter Tertzakian:
Well, let’s wrap up. It’s been great getting an update on what’s going on in the US. Your website does show that you’re active in Canada. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about some of the projects you might be working on in Canada. And you had alluded Matthew that there might be some projects in CCS coming for Canada. So, any perspectives you have on that or hydrogen as well. I actually think we might see some hydrogen projects. So, I’d be interested in your opinion on that.
Matthew Thomas:
Travis, why don’t you touch on LNG first and I’ll go on CCS next.
Travis Shearer:
So, I’d say that we are doing a large project for Trans Mountain right now. And another one is, we’re actually in the final stages on a PDH of propane dehydrogenation project for inner pipeline. That one’s on the final stages as well. But there are a couple of large traditional projects that are coming up that we’re looking at pursuing.
Peter Tertzakian:
Are there renewable fuels as well here?
Travis Shearer:
There are some renewable fuels projects in Canada.
Peter Tertzakian:
So, you can take away the popcorn oils and-
Travis Shearer:
Exactly.
Peter Tertzakian:
Eat something with those?
Travis Shearer:
French fry oil.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah.
Matthew Thomas:
With respect to Canada, I think, the thing that’s really exciting from my perspective with carbon capture is that the new proposed law including a significant investment tax credit of up to 50% for carbon capture facilities and that’s through 2030. And then if there is a step-down provision. Frankly, I think between that and the carbon tax in Canada that creates really kind of, maybe, the globally leading incentive plan to drive decarbonization. Coupled with the Alberta trunk line. And some regional pockets of good geology that support sequestration. I think Canada is very well positioned in this market.
Peter Tertzakian:
Do you see the project proposals for CCS accelerating as a consequence?
Matthew Thomas:
We are getting a lot of interest right now. This announcement was a couple of weeks ago, maybe a month ago. At this point, we’ve had a lot of interest in Canada and in particular, obviously in Alberta. Which is part that’s got some of the best geology for sequestration. I believe that there are already carbon capture projects going in Canada. And I believe that we’ll be involved in quite a few of them here going forward.
Jackie Forrest:
Good. Well, that’s exciting. We hope to see you and all that capital being spent here to help decarbonize not only oil gas sector. I think some of them may be on power and other types of industrial measures as well.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah, that’s great. Well, Matthew Thomas, Travis Shearer from Kiewit. Thanks so much for joining us and giving us an insight into the bigger picture infrastructure projects that are happening on the continent.
Jackie Forrest:
Yeah. Thank you very much.
Matthew Thomas:
Thank You.
Travis Shearer:
Thank you.
Matthew Thomas:
It’s been a pleasure. Appreciate your time.
Jackie Forrest:
And thanks our listeners. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate us on the app that you listened to and tell someone else about us.
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