Japan’s Mizuho Bank, Ltd. has made an investment in Bison Low Carbon Ventures Inc. to facilitate the development of Bison's carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in Alberta, Canada.
Alberta-based carbon storage project developer Bison said in a news release that it has two evaluation-phase hub tenures being progressed towards regulatory approval and commercial development.
Mizuho in a separate news release confirmed that it entered into a share subscription agreement with Bison and has made a $3.64 million (CAD 5 million) investment in the company.
Bison’s Meadowbrook CCS Hub (MSCH) project, located near Edmonton, Alberta, aims to develop a world-scale storage operation with a capacity of three million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per annum. The company said that detailed geological evaluation has been completed and the sequestration application has been submitted with potential to begin storage operations as early as mid-2025, subject to receipt of all necessary approvals. Bison added that the project will scale to full capacity as market demand for sequestration services develops.
The MCSH Project is expected to transport and store CO2 emitted from the Alberta Industrial Heartland region and industries within its proximity, Bison said. The project aims to contribute to Canada's and Alberta's 2050 carbon neutral goal and support new emission-sensitive and existing hard-to-abate industries in reaching their decarbonization targets.
“Through this investment, we will further improve our knowledge of CCS technology and the CCS industry, deepen our involvement in CCS development projects in Japan and around the world, and facilitate the achievement of carbon neutrality by 2050,” Mizuho said in a statement.
Mizuho said it made the investment through its newly established Transition Investment Facility, an equity investment facility for strategic and agile investments in transition area-related projects that are in the development and incubation stages, such as the seed and early stages. Through the facility, Mizuho stated that it has begun committing equity investments towards seed or early-stage corporations to support the challenges Mizuho clients have in funding sustainability initiatives.
Through its relationship with Bison, Mizuho will also participate in the North Drumheller CCS Project and other Bison-developed energy transition initiatives, Bison said.
This is the second investment from a Japanese financial entity in Bison. In July 2023, Marubeni Corporation entered into a share subscription agreement with Bison, also targeting to support the MCSH project.
Japanese firms have been actively investing in energy transition projects in other countries. Japan Petroleum Exploration Co., Ltd. (Japex) announced in March it was partnering with Invest Alberta Corporation to advance the former’s sustainability goals in the province. The two parties aim to work together on Japex’s potential projects in the province, such as carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), and blue hydrogen/ammonia.
Also in March, JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration Corporation signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Chevron USA Inc. division Chevron New Energies to study a potential carbon dioxide (CO2) value chain in the Asia Pacific region. The MoU provides a framework to evaluate the export of CO2 from Japan to CCS projects in Australia and other countries in the Asia Pacific region, the two companies said in an earlier joint news release.
