ADNOC plans sixfold hike in carbon dioxide injection

Jan. 18, 2018
Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. plans a sixfold increase in injection of carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery during the next 10 years as it expands capacity for CO2 capture and storage.

Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. plans a sixfold increase in injection of carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery during the next 10 years as it expands capacity for CO2 capture and storage.

In a program it calls carbon capture, use, and storage (CCUS), the company will extend gas collection to its own operations.

Through Al Reyadah, until this month a partnership with Masdar, Abu Dhabi Future Energy Co., it has injected into reservoirs at Rumaitha and Bab oil fields about 240,000 tonnes of CO2 captured from Emirates Steel Industries (OGJ Online, Nov. 7, 2016).

Al Reyadah moves CO2 from the steel facility to the fields through a 43-km pipeline. It can sequester 800,000 tonnes/year of CO2.

With CO2 from its gas processing plants, ADNOC will begin increasing the oil-field injection rate in 2021 to an expected 250 MMscfd by 2027, freeing for other uses natural gas now reinjected for EOR.

ADNOC claims to have become, in 2009, the first national oil company to conduct pilot tests of CO2 injection for EOR. It teamed with Masdar to develop Al Reyadah in 2016 and this month announced its purchase of Masdar’s 49% of the CCUS business.

The oil company will integrate its 100% interest in Al Reyadah into ADNOC Onshore.

ADNOC has a longstanding goal of increasing ultimate recovery to 70% of oil originally in place (OGJ Online, May 29, 2012).