CO2 project: Saudis plan injections at Ghawar.
Saudis eye CO2 injection at Ghawar
Saudi Arabia plans to test enhanced oil recovery with CO2 its Ghawar Field in the country’s east.
The project, planned for 2013, involves injecting about 40 million cubic feet of carbon dioxide daily into an area flooded by water in the Arab-D reservoir in the Ghawar field, Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman Al-Saud, the country’s assistant minister for petroleum affairs, said today at a carbon capture and storage conference in London.
The oil recovery project is aimed at helping spread a technology that the International Energy Agency today said is a necessary tool to cut by half global emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels by 2050.
It will be the first of its kind in Saudi Arabia, a member of the Saudi delegation said.
“It’s worth mentioning that Saudi Arabia does not need to produce oil through enhanced oil recovery at production scale for decades to come,” Bin Salman Al-Saud said in a Bloomberg report.
“This is a key focus area in our carbon management technology road map,” a set of Saudi policies to help reduce greenhouse-gas emissions blamed for global warming.
The Saudi delegate said that typically about half of the CO2 injected for enhanced oil recovery will remain in the ground.
Fifteen ministers from six continents attended the CCS talks in London.