Petrobras: CO2 seen as boosting output in offshore fields
Petrobras eyes output boost with CO2
Brazilian energy giant Petrobras plans to re-inject carbon dioxide in massive offshore oilfields to boost recovery and reduce emissions, a company official said today.
Brazil plans to boost oil output by nearly 50% in 10 years by tapping the vast pre-salt reserves, but wants to avoid increases in carbon dioxide emissions amid growing global concern about climate change.
"In the case of CO2 in the subsalt, it will be separated from the natural gas and re-injected," said Solange Guedes of Petrobras' Exploration and Production division.
"It is a method that can greatly increase production, meaning that CO2 is not a problem, it's a solution," she said.
Guedes said the company is already testing reinjection operations by taking CO2 from a factory in state of Bahia and injecting it into an onshore field in the area, a Reuters report said.
The oil industry has for decades used CO2 reinjection as a way to boost the amount of oil it can recover in fields, though the process has mostly been used in fields with declining output that have been in production for years.
Norway's StatoilHydro has been burying CO2 separated from the natural gas stream at its Sleipner field in the North Sea for more than a decade, allowing it to avoid government fines for carbon dioxide emissions.
StatoilHydro and Shell in 2007 dropped plans to use CO2 from a gas-fired power plant in Norway for injection into Shell's offshore Draugen field, arguing the project did not make economic sense.