Offshore staff
OSLO, Norway – The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) has drawn up an atlas describing potential subsurface storage locations for carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Norwegian North Sea.
It was due to be submitted today to the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy.
According to NPD, the mapped area has a total storage capacity of around 70 billion metric tons (77 billion tons) of CO2.
The objective of the atlas, claimed to be a first, is to provide an overview of geological structures suitable for secure long-term CO2 storage.
NPD says knowledge of reservoir properties, sealing rocks, migration paths, storage capacity and monitoring methods is critical to determine whether potential storage locations are suitable as a CO2 store over a long period of time.
The atlas is based on studies and data from more than 40 years of petroleum activity. NPD has mapped 21 geological formations for reservoir quality and presence of sealing layers. Reservoirs considered suitable have been assessed further.
The scheme takes into account both shut-down oil and gas fields and producing fields expected to shut down by 2030 and by 2050. Storage locations suited to increased recovery using CO2 injection are also described.
According to Eva Halland, project manager, the work has resulted in better understanding of the coastal areas, including the Utsira and Skade formations, which were found to be more complex than assumed. “There could be a significant potential in these formations, but this must be assessed further.”
12/14/2011
