VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 23, 2024 – Eaglesledge Energy (“ELE” or “the Company”) today provided an update on the development of its Saskatchewan-based Belle Plaine Clean-Tech Energy Refinery & Solar Facility (“the Project”).
The Company’s campaign to propel the Project more swiftly through the Saskatchewan Environment Ministry’s permitting-and-approval channels gained momentum earlier this month when its leaders hosted their first open house in the Rural Municipality (RM) of Pense No. 160.
Members of the community, First Nations business representatives, and local and provincial government stakeholders attended the open house at the Pense Town Hall to learn more about the boutique-style clean-fuels refinery (CFR).
The government presence at the open house lent a spirit of support and sensibility to the Project and its goal to create a new blueprint for green-energy leadership in Canada.
“The Project will revolutionize the energy landscape and redefine what it means to be a responsible energy provider in the 21st century,” said Eaglesledge Energy CEO and Chairman Boris Weiss.
Mr. Weiss noted that achieving the provincial government’s support of his CFR and solar aspirations would bring the Company a step closer to breaking Phase 1 of Project ground while meeting Canada’s climate goals.
The Project site is located 4 km northwest of Pense, Saskatchewan, in the Village of Belle Plaine, and runs parallel to the supply-chain route of the Trans-Canada Highway, locally known as the ‘Regina-Moose Jaw Industrial Corridor’ which comprises several industrial sites including agricultural plant Yarra Canada and potash mining company Mosaic. The CFR is slated to process 30,000 barrels per stream day (bpsd) of low-sulphur light crude oil, as well as to feature a 125-megawatt solar facility and railyard.
Mr. Weiss said the Company will provide product distribution within local and provincial communities via the Canadian Pacific Kansas City Limited (CPKC) Rail line and the Trans-Canada Highway connectors.
“Shipping by rail is extremely costly. The proximity to the Bakken Formation reduces transportation costs—large savings in transporting crude direct to site—which, in turn, enables the reduction of harmful emissions during the long-haul of crude deliverables,” Mr. Weiss said.
Public engagement 101
Robert Woods attended the Open House as a proxy representative for Okimaw Chief Shelly Bear of the Ochapowace First Nation, the rights holder to the Treaty 4 territory where ELE’s project site is situated and whose economic arm, the Atoskewin Business Development Corporation, late last year signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for a limited partnership with ELE.
“I understand the importance of these community engagement meetings in working through the additions to reserve process and creating Treaty lands,” said Mr. Woods who is based in Saskatoon and hails from the Muskoday First Nation.
“Our neighbours in rural Saskatchewan, through RMs like yourself, have a vested interest in seeing projects develop within your regions—and I think this one is important.”
ELE’s town hall fell on the heels of the Saskatchewan Environment Ministry’s Environmental Impact Assessment Notice to the public on Saturday, July 29, in the form of local ads placed in the Regina Leader Post, the Saskatoon Star Phoenix, and the Moose Jaw Express newspapers, as well as on social media, indicating the Project is subject to an environmental assessment under The Environmental Assessment Act.
Further government support came from Deputy Minister Jodi Banks of Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Trade and Export Development in a letter to Mr. Weiss thanking him for considering Belle Plaine, Saskatchewan, as a location for Eaglesledge Energy’s clean fuels refinery.
“The Government of Saskatchewan looks forward to a first-of-a-kind refinery operation with the integration of renewable electricity supply and intentions of implementing carbon capture technology,” Ms. Banks wrote.
A new kind of footprint and job creation
The Project’s multitude of green benefits include the refinery’s carbon capture, utility, and storage (CCUS) components as well as the integrated solar solution.
“Our plant will be processing brand new forms of energy, whole new sets of clean footprints that originated from carbon, which will place Saskatchewan front-and-centre, nationally and globally, as leaders of green energy,” said Mr. Weiss, pointing out that at present “there are only 23 facilities globally” like his company’s, while emphasizing the “astronomical cost of energy required to support this kind of endeavour.”
The Project will also position and propel energy production locally through well-paying jobs for many in the community, positively stimulating Saskatchewan’s economy and establishing the province as a fiscal power player in Canada.
“Our strategy is to help advance Saskatchewan’s oil-and-gas sector by presenting a whole new vision for the energy industry,” Mr. Weiss explained.
ELE’s Chief Operating Officer Dr. R. Gerald Bailey, a chemical engineer, energy consultant, and former president of Exxon’s Arabian Gulf division, said he’s steadfastly passionate about his trade and staying apace of evolving trends. He’s a proponent of “the more progressive energy ideologies” shared among his younger family members, so long as they are purported without any “smoke and mirrors.”
“I’ve got kids and I’ve got grandkids and they’ve grown up knowing how petroleum fits into their lives. I do a lot of speaking at schools to tell the young people how just about everything in this room, if it’s not made of wood, it came from petroleum in some stage,” said Dr. Bailey, who also has experience in all aspects of the petroleum industry, both upstream and downstream, including in a 400,000-bpsd refinery for Exxon.
Opportunity knocks: Tapping Canada’s renewable resources potential
Dr. Bailey believes ELE’s project is economically viable and has the potential for rich renewable-backed rewards. “Canada is sitting on a lot of natural resources and a lot of hydrocarbons and yet most of the material is being shipped south [of the border],” he said.
“Canada is one of the largest countries supplying crude oil to the ‘Lower 48.’ An opportunity like this will keep more of that here and utilize the savings—the transport and production costs, and the costs of other technological developments we are introducing.”
Dr. Bailey forecasts “upside” for everyone in the RM community if the plant takes off and suggests that even “billion-dollar projects” like this one typically start with a kernel of a vision with the common denominator being two simple words: “Why Not?”
“I think you could be the anchor place for a world-class opportunity with big benefits,” he told the audience, adding, “If you’re going to get into a business, you want to be in a business where everybody needs it, they don’t always understand it, but they can’t do without it, and most people waste it.”
“There’s profit to be made if you do it right. You’re in a good location right off the Canadian Pacific [Railway]—great logistics to be able to make products, move products, have your own things in your backyard, in a safe and environmentally friendly, good-neighbour spot.”
