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The Financial Post had previously reported that Suncor Energy Inc., Husky Energy Inc. MEG Energy Corp., Fractal Systems Inc., Greenfire Oil and Gas Ltd. and Value Creation Inc. were among the firms that applied for funding for partial upgraders in the province.

Partial upgrading is a technological process still under development that removes some of the heavy components in bitumen so the oilsands product could flow through a pipeline without the need for costly blending agents.

In January of this year, the Alberta government under Notley signed a letter of intent to provide $440 million in loan guarantees to Value Creation, a move which was sharply criticized by Kenney on the campaign trail this past spring. It was the only funding announcement related to the Partial Upgrading Program.

Value Creation did not respond to a request for comment on its next move now that the $440 million in funding for its project had been discontinued by the new government.

Savage and Nally also announced that the government will continue the Petrochemical Diversification Program (PDP), a related initiative that will offer $950 million in yet-to-be awarded royalty credits to companies building facilities that turn gas byproducts into plastics.

“Ethane, methane and propane is what we’re looking at,” said Nally, who added there are nine applications for projects currently being considered.

Through two tranches of funding, the PDP program has previously provided royalty credits for two multi-billion propane-to-plastics projects near Edmonton by Pembina Pipeline Corp. and Inter Pipeline Ltd., a methanol project in Grande Praririe, Alta. from Nauticol Energy Ltd. and an acrylic acid project by Inter Pipeline.

Financial Post

• Email: gmorgan@nationalpost.com | Twitter: geoffreymorgan