Study Examines Limitations of CCS and Their Effect on Oil and Gas Production

This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Chris Carpenter, contains highlights of paper SPE 214950, “Limitations and Fallacies of Carbon Capture and Storage and Impact on Oil and Gas Production,” by S.M. Farouq Ali, SPE, and Mohamed Y. Soliman, SPE, University of Houston. The paper has not been peer reviewed. In the complete paper, the authors write that, while carbon capture and storage (CCS) initiatives are affecting oil and gas operations profoundly, such efforts have had little perceptible effect on atmospheric CO2, which continues to increase. The paper aims to show that current CCS regimens have serious technical and fiscal constraints and questionable validity, stating that, globally, CCS has not increased beyond approximately 0.1% of global CO2 emissions in the past 20 years. The paper offers partial solutions and concludes that, while oil and gas will continue to be important energy sources beyond the foreseeable future, oil companies will accomplish the needed CCS. The authors write that, while CCS efforts have been pursued for 4 decades, little has been achieved. For the past 20 years, the percentage of CO2 captured and stored is less than 0.1% of the CO2 emitted worldwide, if one considers CO2 enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects to be CSS—which, the authors write, is a fallacy. They emphasize that CCS means injection with no production. The key to CCS success, they write, is major governmental subsidization, by whatever terminology it is known, and that means taxpayer money. Sweeping decisions that have a profound effect on oil and gas production and petroleum engineering education are being made based on predictions of an increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere in various time frames. The problem of world CO2 emissions capture is gigantic. To appreciate the magnitude of the problem, imagine that 1 year’s CO2 emissions (40 billion tonnes) are captured, compressed and liquified, and injected into a reservoir the size of the Ghawar oil field, the largest reservoir in the world, with the entire pore space (approximately 0.5 Tcf) available for storage. In this hypothetical, nine such reservoirs would be required every year. Presumably, such storage space can be found, but collecting the CO2 and bringing it to a storage site is a highly complex task. For example, in a sequestration effort in a building complex in New York, the CO2 is separated, liquified, and trucked to a storage site to be injected underground, which is impractical. Often, the example of the Nordic countries (mainly Denmark, Sweden, and Norway) is cited as evidence of successful emissions reduction. But the total population of these countries is approximately the same as that of metropolitan Mumbai in India. Carbon capture use and storage (CCUS) implies that the CO2 produced by various processes is captured and used for EOR. This accounts for approximately 30% of the 230 mtpa of CO2 captured globally. CCS means that any CO2 produced by the process is captured and injected into a suitable geological formation for storage for thousands of years. Net-zero emissions (NZE) implies that all the CO2 produced is captured and stored. In Canada, “absolute zero emissions” is discussed, meaning that no CO2 is produced in the first place, pointing to total fossil-fuel phaseout.