Offshore staff
LONDON – Britain’s Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) has awarded Harbour Energy a carbon dioxide (CO2) appraisal and storage license.
This covers an area in the southern North Sea off the coast of Immingham, northern Lincolnshire.
Harbour proposes is to re-use the depleted Rotliegend gas fields, Viking, and Victor, around 140 km (87 mi) offshore, to store CO2 in deep geological formations close to 2,743 m (9,000 ft) below the seabed.
Potentially, the Bunter formation aquifer could provide further options to increase the storage capacity.
Conoco developed both fields in the 1970s-80s. Chrysaor Energy (recently merged with Premier Oil to form Harbour) assumed operatorship from ConocoPhillips during the previous decade.
Under the V Net Zero development, Harbour would transport CO2 along a newly-constructed pipeline from Immingham to Theddlethorpe to the south, and re-use the 120-km (75-mi) offshore LOGGS pipeline to transport the CO2 to the Viking fields.
First injection could start in 4Q 2026 at rates rising initially to 3.6 MM metric tons/yr (3.97 MM tons) and to 11 MMM metric tons/yr (12.1 MM tons) by 2030. This would eclipse the UK’s government’s 10 Point Plan of achieving CCUS (carbon capture, usage and storage) of 10 MMt/yr by 2030.
But under the license terms, Harbour must achieve various of milestones along the way, including reprocessing of legacy 3D seismic data.
Phil Kirk, president and CEO (Europe), Harbour Energy, said: “The OGA’s decision to grant Harbour Energy a carbon storage license is great news for the Humber and for the V Net Zero Humber Cluster. It is an essential milestone which comes at an exciting time for the project as we seek to remove more than 50% of existing industrial emissions in the Humber region.”
10/11/2021
