Shell revealed on Wednesday that its Subsidiary, Shell Canada Products has reached the Final Investment Decision (FID) for Polaris, a carbon capture project designed to capture approximately 650,000 tons of CO₂ annually from the Shell-owned Scotford refinery and chemicals complex, in Alberta, Canada.

Besides Polaris FID, Shell also announced FID to proceed with the Atlas Carbon Storage Hub in partnership with ATCO EnPower. The first phase of Atlas will provide permanent underground storage for CO₂ captured by the Polaris project.

“Carbon capture and storage is a key technology to achieve the Paris Agreement climate goals,” said Huibert Vigeveno, Shell’s Downstream, Renewable and Energy Solutions Director.

“The Polaris and Atlas projects are important steps in reducing emissions from our own operations,” Vigeveno added.

Polaris and Atlas will build on the success of the Quest carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility at Scotford, which has safely captured and stored more than nine million tons of CO₂ since 2015 that would otherwise have been released into the atmosphere.

Both projects are expected to begin operations by 2028.