Underground storage of

carbon dioxide
Emission mitigation which counts

What is

carbon dioxide?
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a natural, fluctuating component of the Earths atmosphere, and has been present throughout most of geological time.
Since the industrial revolution, however, its concentration in the air has risen by about a third, from 280 to 380 parts per million, and may well reach at least twice the pre-industrial level by 2100. Most of this increase is attributed to the burning of carbon-rich fossil fuels coal, natural gas and oil and is widely thought to be a contributory factor in trapping heat radiating from the Earths surface. This, in turn, may lead to global warming the greenhouse effect and stimulate climate change. How far this may happen remains unknown. Some say it will lead to disastrous consequences, while others foresee relatively slight but noticeable variations. Either way, something has to be done about it. Statoil works purposefully to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emissions from the groups installations. The reductions will be achieved by injecting CO2 underground for long-term storage or enhanced oil recovery (EOR), using hydroelectricity from the Norwegian grid to power installations where applicable, and enhancing energy efficiency. The group is currently involved in four commercial projects on CO2 capture and storage at different levels of maturity. These are the Sleipner area in the North Sea, the Snhvit LNG development in northern Norway, In Salah in Algeria, and a CO2 capture facility at the Mongstad refinery on the west Norwegian coast.

Snhvit
off northern Norway
The Snhvit field in the Barents Sea will provide gas for the worlds first gas liquefaction plant with CO2 capture and storage (CCS). Statoil is operator for the Snhvit project, with initial start-up at the end of 2007.

Snhvit Askeladd Hammerfest Albatross

Oslo Stavanger

cos_091291.mxd

This development combines subsea production installations with a 145-kilometre multiphase-flow pipeline running to a gas liquefaction plant under construction on the island of Melkya near the town of Hammerfest. Ships will export the resulting liquefied natural gas (LNG) at around -163 C to Europe and the USA. CO2 has the undesirable property that it solidifies at the temperature of LNG, and can thereby cause all kinds of operational problems such as blocking pipes. This gas must accordingly be removed prior to liquefaction. Just as on Sleipner, it was decided to capture and store the CO2.

A conventional amine process will be used for capture, after which a second 145-kilometre pipeline will return the CO2 to Snhvit. It will be injected there into a layer of porous sandstone filled with salt water called the Tuben formation. This lies 2 500 metres beneath the seabed, safely below the gas reservoir. Some 700 000 tonnes of CO2 are due to be stored in this way every year. A dedicated monitoring programme partly financed by the EU has been set up to monitor the behaviour of the CO2 below ground.

European CO2
the worlds first low-CO2 refinery
A combined heat and power (CHP) station fuelled by natural gas is under construction at Statoils Mongstad refinery north of Bergen. This represents Norways largest project for enhancing energy efficiency, and will be a beacon for CCS-related technology. The CHP facility is due to generate about 350 MW of heat in the form of steam for the refinery, making it possible to shut down large parts of todays inefficient energy supply at the plant. About 280 MW of electricity will also be generated to supply the Troll A and Gja platforms in the Norwegian North Sea and the Troll gas processing plant at Kollsnes further south along the coast. Gas for the CHP station will be supplied partly through a new pipeline from Kollsnes, and partly in the form of surplus refinery gas. The facility will be owned and operated by Denmarks Dong Energy. An agreement was concluded in October 2006 between the Norwegian government and Statoil concerning CCS from the CHP station and the refinery. Under this deal, a large-scale demonstration plant will be built for testing and qualifying CCS technologies. It is due to be ready in 2011, roughly at the same time as the CHP station comes on line. The demonstration plant will have an annual capacity of 100 000 tonnes of CO2, and will operate for at least five years. It will be owned by the Norwegian government, Statoil and a group of domestic and foreign partners. Close collaboration with suppliers and contractors is planned. Two different technologies amines and chilled ammonia will be tested in order to reduce risk and cost of full scale CO2-capture. Both technologies are applicable to natural gas and coal fired power plants and other industrial point sources such as the refinery cracker flue gas. Creation of a full-scale CO2-capture plant at Mongstad covering

test centre at Mongstad

the CHP plant and relevant sections of the refinery is also outlined as a phase II in the agreement with the Norwegian government. The two largest CO2 sources at Mongstad total more than two million tonnes per year, but the amount captured will depend on the sources chosen. In 2008 Statoil prepared a main plan for a full-scale plant, including a recommendation on sources. An investment decision is expected to be taken in 2012, based in part on results from the demonstration plant. Under the agreement, the Norwegian government will be responsible for the facilities for CO2 capture, intermediate storage and final storage in a geological formation beneath the North Sea.

UK

Norway

Norway
Gja Troll Mongstad Bergen

Troll

Gja field

Subsea CO2 injection Power cable Natural gas pipeline CO2 pipeline

Power cable

Kollsnes
Mongstad

Sleipner area
in the North Sea
The Statoil-operated Sleipner West gas and condensate field was in its planning phase in 1990. Natural gas from this North Sea reservoir contains around 9% CO2, which exceeds customer requirements. So the CO2 needed to be removed. An offshore CO2 tax was introduced by the Norwegian government in 1991 with the aim of reducing CO2 emissions. This tax is currently around USD 60 per tonne. Encouraged by this levy, Statoil proposed removing the Sleipner CO2 offshore and injecting it into a deep geological layer beneath the A platform on the nearby Sleipner East field. The CO2 will be stored for a long time, probably thousands of years, in this Utsira formation, which comprises porous sandstone filled with salt water. An overlying gas-tight cap rock 800 metres thick prevents the CO2 from seeping up into the atmosphere. This solution was backed by the Sleipner licence partners, and has cut CO2 emissions by almost a million tonnes per year. That corresponds to roughly 3% of Norways CO2 emissions in 1990. Sleipner West came on stream in October 1996, which also brought the worlds first offshore CO2 capture plant into operation along with its first CO2 storage project in a geological formation 1 000 metres beneath the seabed. CO2 capture on Sleipner East uses a conventional amine process, but making this sufficiently compact for installation on a platform in the middle of the North Sea, 250 kilometres from land, presented a challenge. The cost of the extra equipment for CO2 compression and drilling the CO2 injection well was roughly USD 100 million. More than twelve million tonnes of CO2 have so far been stored. The way this gas is spreading through the Utsira formation has been mapped by various research projects partly financed by the European Union (EU).

Gas processing platforms

One million tonnes of CO2 reinjected every year

Utsira formation

USD 100 000 in carbon tax saved daily

Carbon injection well

Production wells

Natural gas reservoir

Vision for sub-surface CO2 storage

CO2 capture from various power generation processes, including the hydrogen-based route, has been a key research and development topic at Statoil for more than a decade. Over the years, the group has developed a vision of where the oil and gas industry may be heading in a climate-driven future. Fossil fuels can be transformed into two carbon-free energy carriers electricity and hydrogen with the greenhouse gas captured and stored safely underground.
Natural gas pipeline
Electricity
CO2

Hydrogen pipelines

Fuel cells Gas turbines

Hydrogen Hydrogen

Geological storage

The illustration shows how natural gas (or oil, coal) is used to manufacture the two CO2-free energy carriers, electricity and hydrogen. The new element is the incorporation of processes that capture and store the CO2,

In Salah in Algeria
Statoils third CO2 injection project is located on Algerias In Salah gas field in the central Sahara, which is operated jointly by Sonatrach, BP and Statoil.
For both commercial and technical reasons, the CO2 is removed from the natural gas as on the Sleipner fields and again with an amine process. Since 2004, about 2 million tonnes of CO2 have been captured and stored at In Salah. These volumes are held in the same geological layer as the natural gas, but at a safe distance. The same cap rock which holds the natural gas in place will keep the CO2 safely stored.
Italy Spain Algiers Morocco Hassi Mounia

Algeria
In Amenas In Salah Libya

Research and development

Statoil has been the initiator of and an active partner in various R&D projects on CCS, both alone and with others, since the late 1980s.

The groups activities in this area have demonstrated possibilities for creating CO2 value chains and promoting several capture, transport and storage projects. The world appears to be moving rapidly in the direction of promoting and accepting CCS as a major medium-term method for potentially reducing CO2 emissions on a global scale. A major outcome of cooperative research efforts is that sub-surface CO2 storage can be done safely. This work has mainly been done in various projects financed in part by the EU. These include the Sacs, CO2Store, Castor and CO2Remove programmes. Four-dimensional seismic surveying has been a very important tool in reaching reliable conclusions. Best practice manuals for CO2 storage have been continuously updated in these projects. Several pilot units have been constructed to study CO2 capture technologies. These are yielding valuable results and inputs for the research programme in order to qualify new technology or optimise traditional solutions. They are all based on post-combustion technology, whereby CO2 is removed after combustion in a power station. But other capture technologies, such as pre-combustion and oxyfuel, are also the subject of major R&D projects, including Encap and Dynamis. The latest experimental and theoretical results are used for continuous comparison to identify which technology is the most suitable for various conditions. Statoil is active in several important international initiatives, such as the greenhouse gas programme of the International Energy Agency (IEA), the European CO2Net, the Carbon Sequestration Leadership

Forum (CSLF) and the CCS Association in the UK. In recent years, the group has also become involved in the EUs zero emission programme (ZEP). Knowledge of the fundamental properties of CO2 and the impact of its impurities is crucial for all research on CO2 capture and transport. A new laboratory-scale test rig for CO2 pipeline transport is being used to establish operational windows and specifications for offshore operations and for training operators in CO2 pipeline management.

Outlook
CCS has attracted greatly increased attention and activity at a global level among policy makers, industries and research communities during recent years. Statoil plays an active role in this area, and has won great attention and recognition. New projects are being launched in Denmark, The Netherlands, Poland, Spain, France, Italy, the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, Germany, Indonesia and elsewhere. Statoils work has served as an inspiration for these new programmes worldwide. The group has combined large-scale commercial projects with internationally recognised research programmes, whilst also sharing data and showing an open and transparent attitude. Its work has yielded good results which can help to build public trust in and acceptance of this important contribution to meeting the climate challenge.

Statoil ASA NO-4035 Stavanger Norway Telephone +47 51 99 00 00 www.statoil.com

COS_0891328. Kjetil Alsvik, Leif Berge, Helge Hansen, yvind Hagen. Illustrations: Statoil. November 2009.