On the rise: carbon capture and storage network in the UAE.
UAE carbon capture plan to cost $3 billion
A plan to build a carbon capture and storage (CCS) network to reduce emissions and boost the United Arab Emirates' oil output would cost between $2 billion and $3 billion, an executive of Canada's SNC-Lavalin said today.
The project could reduce carbon emissions from the UAE - which is among the highest greenhouse gas emitters per capita in the world - by around 10%, said Doug Macdonald, consultant in SNC-Lavalin's chemicals and petroleum business.
Engineering and construction company SNC-Lavalin is close to completing a feasibility study on the project.
The study has identified four to six projects with an estimated cost of $500 million each that could be quickly executed, Reuters quoted Macdonald as telling a green energy conference.
Reductions in the UAE's carbon emissions would come to between 6 million and 8 million tonnes per year, he added. That was from a total of around 76 million tonnes per year of present and planned emissions in the UAE, he said.
The UAE's cheap energy, the relative proximity of emissions sites to oilfields and the abundance of large reservoirs that could be used to store the carbon would make the project cheap compared to similar plans elsewhere, he added.
"We have identified between 6 million to 8 million tonnes of CO2 that could be put away at very competitive costs," he said. "If you can't do it here, then you can't do it anywhere."
The project would be the largest single integrated CCS project in the world, Macdonald said.
The aim of the project is to pump the carbon to oilfields for injection underground to maintain oil pressure and boost output, while freeing up the gas that is currently injected.
The UAE needs the gas for power generation to meet rising demand as petrodollars fuel an economic boom.