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Alberta Premier Rachel Notley. Image: Government of Alberta The Alberta government says it is reviewing a short list of six projects that could receive a share of its $1 billion pot of available funding for oilsands partial upgrading. The emerging suite of technologies is being developed to reduce the thickness of oilsands bitumen so it can flow through pipelines more easily, without having to be blended with diluent. This is expected to provide significant cost savings to industry, increase pipeline capacity by up to 30 per cent, and provide access to more refineries around the world. The incentives are part of the program from the government’s Energy Diversification Act, which came into effect in June 2018. The province committed $1 billion over eight years beginning in 2019-20, which will include a variety of fiscal tools including loan guarantees and grants. The proposals under review are collectively worth nearly $5 billion of new private sector investment and could create almost 10,000 construction jobs with 500 more jobs during operations, the province said in a statement.
