Author:
Former President/CEO
International CCS Knowledge Centre
Mike Monea,
Former President/CEO
International CCS Knowledge Centre
Michael (Mike) Monea grew up in Southern Saskatchewan, Canada with a passion for geology which has fuelled his career path to date. He holds designations as a Professional Engineer, Professional Geoscientist and is a member of the Canadian Institute of Corporate Directors. His entrepreneurial vision is the root of his past successes in developing companies and overseeing the construction of megaprojects.
Mike is the former President and CEO of the International CCS Knowledge Centre a non-profit organization which he helped to establish with BHP Billiton and SaskPower. This new initiative represents a culmination of Mike’s hard work as the president of Carbon capture and storage initiatives at SaskPower where he was in charge of creating and building the world’s first carbon capture plant for a coal electric unit valued at $1.5 billion CDN.
As a world-leading scientist, research and development is a key component in Mike’s mission to help reduce greenhouse gases through CCS technologies. His oversight of a scale-sized Carbon Capture Test Facility has ensured that progress continues to be made with international vendors on post-combustion capture systems. Progress gained in these areas can help reduce costs and advance CCS.
Mike’s past experience in oil and gas has allowed him to understand the benefits of and opportunities for carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and deep saline reservoir storage. Mike secured sales of CO2 from the Boundary Dam CCS Facility to oil fields in Southern Saskatchewan. Early on in his professional career he was trained in oil and gas operations in United States and went on to create two oil and gas companies, Nautilus Exploration and Associated Ltd. (in 1982) and Flatland Exploration Ltd. (in 1999). He had the opportunity to develop EOR procedures as the head of the Petroleum Technology Research Centre (PTRC), amongst other processes for the oil and gas industry.
Throughout his career, Mike has understood the importance of partnerships at a local, national and international level. In 2006, Mike formed a Chinese investment company and since then has worked with most power, oil and regulatory agencies in China on CCS knowledge transfer. Mike has travelled the world speaking on CCS and is a sought-after panellist and advisor for this ground-breaking technology.
Mike is now the President of the Monea-CCS Services Ltd.
Greetings from Conference of the Parties (COP23) in Bonn Germany. I am excited to share our experience at the side event, supporting Islands and Oceans Nations – who are a harbinger for what is going on with the earth’s climate – as the first to feel the events of climate change.
I’m learning from folks from Trinidad and Tobago among others, who have a need for what we can offer with our learnings from Boundary Dam3 and the impact of taking large volumes of CO2 from the air – to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
It is also great to reconnect with world experts, Katherine Romanak from University of Texas on CO2 storage and Tim Dixon, of the IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme on the importance and role of CCUS.
