Canada’s oil sands: emissions intensity improves as new 2020 carbon regulations take hold

The focus on environmental performance has never been higher. Oil sands producers are delivering on steady reductions to emissions intensity even without factoring in large investments made into carbon sequestration. We track reported disclosures and forecast emissions for every oil sands project. This is happening in a changing regulatory environment. Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction (TIER) has now replaced the previous CCIR regulations. This results in a sizeable reduction to the carbon cost levies for many oil sands projects, but not all. In this analysis we dive into Alberta's carbon regulations and carbon pricing, using our asset-level models to quantify the impacts for oil sands projects and producers.