Canada is moving ahead with what the federal government says will be the country’s largest carbon capture and storage project, as Alberta-based Enhance Energy begins construction of its Origins Carbon Capture Storage Hub near Clive. The project is expected to begin operations in January 2027, adding another major piece to Alberta’s growing carbon-management infrastructure.
The Origins hub will initially have the capacity to permanently store as much as 1.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year. That is roughly equivalent to removing the emissions of more than 500,000 passenger vehicles annually, according to the Canadian government. The facility is designed to expand over time as additional industrial sources connect to the system.
Origins is being developed by Enhance Energy, a company that already operates carbon-storage infrastructure in Alberta. Its existing Clive operation has stored millions of tonnes of industrial carbon dioxide and uses established geological formations and transportation infrastructure to move captured emissions underground. Enhance received approval from the Alberta Energy Regulator in July 2025 for the Origins saline-aquifer project, clearing an important regulatory hurdle for the new facility.
Unlike projects that capture carbon directly from a single factory or power station, Origins is intended to function as an open-access storage hub. It can receive carbon dioxide from multiple industrial facilities and sectors, potentially including oil and gas, petrochemicals, cement and electricity generation. That hub model is central to Alberta’s broader strategy of developing shared carbon infrastructure rather than requiring every emitter to develop its own storage system.
The project is also designed to make use of Alberta’s existing carbon transportation network. That connection could give industrial companies along the Edmonton-Calgary corridor a route to permanent underground storage without having to build completely independent systems. Natural Resources Canada has described Origins as an opportunity to establish commercial-scale permanent storage in a pressure-depleted saline aquifer within a Canadian carbonate reservoir.
Ottawa has provided financial support for the development work. Natural Resources Canada committed C$5 million to Enhance’s Origins project through its Energy Innovation Program, with total project costs for the supported development and regulatory work estimated at about C$12 million. The federal funding is intended to help with subsurface analysis, regulatory compliance and preparations needed to advance the project toward commercial operation.
The project arrives at a critical moment for Canada’s carbon-capture ambitions. The country has promoted carbon capture as a way to reduce emissions from industries that are difficult to electrify while allowing energy-intensive sectors to remain competitive. Alberta, in particular, has developed extensive expertise in carbon transportation and underground storage, although the economics of large-scale carbon capture remain a major challenge.
Origins is separate from the much larger proposed Pathways carbon-capture network being developed by Canada’s major oil-sands producers. Pathways is intended to collect carbon dioxide from numerous oil-sands facilities and transport it to a storage hub near Cold Lake, with a planned capacity running into several million tonnes annually. The industry group behind that project has only recently moved closer to implementation after years of uncertainty over financing, carbon pricing and government policy.
That distinction is important because Origins is expected to start operating much earlier. The Pathways project remains a massive, phased undertaking, while Origins is being built around a smaller initial storage capacity and existing transportation infrastructure. Canada’s government has increasingly viewed such projects as part of a broader network that could eventually connect numerous industrial emitters to common storage sites.
Enhance’s experience at Clive gives the company a practical advantage. The company says its existing operations have permanently stored industrial carbon dioxide for years, while Natural Resources Canada has backed Origins partly because it can demonstrate new approaches to geological storage. Enhance has described itself as Canada’s largest geological sequestration operator under provincial and federal compliance programs.
The January 2027 start will therefore serve as an important test for Canada’s effort to turn carbon capture from a collection of pilot projects into functioning commercial infrastructure. Success at Origins could help establish confidence in shared storage hubs, attract new industrial investment and provide emitters with another option for meeting increasingly stringent emissions requirements.
But the project’s significance goes beyond its headline capacity. Canada is trying to balance climate commitments with an economy heavily dependent on energy-intensive industries. Carbon capture does not eliminate the emissions associated with producing or ultimately consuming fossil fuels, and its costs remain controversial. For supporters, however, projects such as Origins offer a way to reduce industrial emissions while preserving economic activity.
If construction remains on schedule, Origins will become a tangible demonstration of that strategy when it starts taking carbon underground next January. Its initial 1.5-million-tonne annual capacity will not transform Canada’s emissions profile by itself, but it could provide a foundation for a much larger carbon-storage network across Alberta.
