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CO2 from Power Stations
to be used in Oilfi elds
A research project started in
2007 will determine whether
CO2 can be used to increase
the extraction degree in the
Danish part of the North Sea.
This could turn out to have a
huge potential, the development
manager from DONG
Energy informs.
Offshore Center Danmark has
undertaken a preceeding pilot
project in the period 2005-
2007, to investigate increased
oil recovery from the Danish
chalk fi elds with participants
from several companies as
well as Aalborg University
(Esbjerg Institute) and GEUS
(Geological Survey of Danmark
and Greenland). CO2 injection
and microbial addition was the
main focus of the pilot project.
12 Offshore Center Danmark
Yearbook 2008
Can the residual product CO2 originating
from the production of the Danish power
stations be used to increase the extraction
degree on oilfi elds in the North Sea and at
the same time contribute to solve one of the
planet’s greatest challenges within the environment:
The discharge of CO2?
A question raised by DONG Energy and
several partners in a current research project
supported by the Danish foundation for high
technology. Denmark discharges more CO2
per inhabitant compared to the European
average – 11 tons compared to eight tons in
the entire Europe – and of the 55 million CO2
a year the power stations count for approximately
50% of the discharge.
– Several places CO2 is used in land-based
drillings, especially in the US, and one of
the questions is, whether we can transfer the
knowledge from land in the US and Canada
to the North Sea, where the distance between
the wells is longer, the development manager
Charles Nielsen, DONG Energy, informs.
Neither in the Danish nor in the Norwegian
part of the North Sea CO2 is as yet used to
improve the degree of oil extraction, however
MARGINAL
FIELDS
Statoil Hydro has during the approximately
past 10 years deposited CO2 in connection
with the extraction of natural gas. Before the
injection of CO2 to increase the pressure in
the wells could be taken into use, a series of
tests are to be effectuated, where the infl uence
of oil, installations and reservoirs is to
be simulated.
– I believe that on a long-term basis we will
have a European infrastructure of pipelines
to deposits on land, to drained oilfi elds and
maybe to initiatives to improve the extraction
on active oilfi elds. This could turn out to have
a big potential; in my opinion, however, it
will take another ten years to get it operating
at 100%. The technology to isolate the CO2
from the fl ue-gas is not yet in place, and on
top of this the right facilities would also have
to be constructed, Charles Nielsen explains.
The objective of the EU countries is to reduce
the CO2 discharge by 20% before 2010, and
furthermore by 30%, provided that we reach
a global agreement in 2009. One of the means
to reach the objective could be investment of
billions of DKK in order to transfer the CO2
from the power stations to the oilfi elds. ■