Bullish: Repsol
Repsol weighs Brazil CO2 challenge
Spanish producer Repsol's Brazilian gas reserves have a high level of carbon dioxide gas, requiring extra processes to separate and store, the company said today.
"Levels of carbon dioxide are over 15% in most of our blocks in Brazil," a Repsol spokeswoman told Reuters.
The oil industry has for decades used CO2 reinjection as a way to boost recovery in declining fields and more recently to mimimise its CO2 emissions.
However, much of Repsol's gas reserves in Brazil are in unexploited, ultra deep exploration blocks up to 300 kilometres from the coast, which could increase the costs of CO2 injection.
Brazilian state-run energy company Petrobras, which shares production with Repsol in nearly all its Brazilian assets, said in September it plans to separate CO2 from natural gas on extraction and re-inject it into the deposits.
"It is a method that can greatly increase production, meaning that CO2 is not a problem, it's a solution," Solange Guedes of Petrobras' Exploration & Production division told the news agency.