While The UAE's Oil Company Abu Dhabi National can say it is capturing and storing CO2 underground, they are really using the CO2 to push up more oil from their oil fields. One wonders if they would have done this, to begin with, if the oil was flowing out of the ground easily.

Adnoc Expand Carbon Capture to Reduce Environmental Footprint and Enhance Oil Recovery

The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) is planning to significantly expand its use of Carbon Capture, Use and Storage (CCUS) technology to meet a six-fold increase in the utilization of CO 2, for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), over the next 10 years.

 From article, (The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) is planning to significantly expand its use of Carbon Capture, Use and Storage (CCUS) technology to meet a six-fold increase in the utilization of CO2, for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), over the next 10 years. The volume of the greenhouse gas safely locked away underground will be equivalent to the CO2 emitted by more than one million motor vehicles each day.

To meet the increased demand for CO2, which will be injected into Abu Dhabi’s maturing oil reservoirs, ADNOC has drawn up ambitious plans to capture the greenhouse gas from its own operations. ADNOC aspires to achieve up to 70 per cent ultimate oil recovery rate from its reservoirs, which is twice as much as the global average, applying conventional recovery methods.

To date, ADNOC has stored approximately 240,000 metric tons of CO2, collected from Emirates Steel Industries (ESI), by injecting it into its reservoirs at Rumaitha and Bab oilfields to bolster oil recovery.

Starting in 2021, ADNOC will gradually increase the utilisation of CO2, expecting to reach 250 million standard cubic feet per day (MMscfd) by 2027 by capturing additional CO2 from its gas processing plants and injecting it into different onshore oil fields.

In the oil industry, CCUS technology works in three stages. Carbon dioxide is first captured on site, then it is compressed and dehydrated. Finally, it is transported via a pipeline for injection into oilfields, where it can be leveraged to enhance oil recovery. Using primary and secondary (waterflood) recovery techniques, between 30-35 per cent of oil are recovered on a global average. Including waterflood, ADNOC achieves up to 50% recovery rate from its fields. EOR techniques, such as the use of CO2 and CCUS, can help increase recovery to up to 70 per cent.

The International Energy Agency (EIA) believes carbon capture and storage technologies have a key role to play in realising a sustainable, climate-friendly future energy scenario and are expected to account for about one sixth of required emissions reductions by 2050.)

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