Land-Based CO2 Could be Stored Subsea
Statoil has been contracted by Gassnova to evaluate the development of a carbon storage facility on the Norwegian continental shelf for CO2 generated by land-based industry.
The storage project is part of Norwegian authorities’ efforts to develop full-scale carbon capture and storage in Norway. If it goes ahead, it would be the first storage site in the world receiving CO2 from several industrial sources. CO2 would be captured from three onshore industrial facilities in Eastern Norway and then transported by ship to a receiving plant onshore located on the west-coast of Norway.
At the receiving plant, CO2 will be pumped from the ship to tanks onshore, prior to being sent through pipelines on the seabed to several injection wells east of the Troll field on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.
The storage solution to be evaluated by Statoil will have the potential to receive CO2 from both Norwegian and European emission sources.
“The CCS project that has been assigned to us will require an entirely new collaboration model with carbon capture from several industrial sources, carbon transportation by ships, and carbon storage 1,000-2,000 meters below the seabed,” says Irene Rummelhoff, Statoil’s executive vice president for New Energy Solutions. “In addition, this may be the start of the world’s first CCS network across national borders.”
The results of studies performed in 2016 show that it is technically feasible to realize a carbon capture and storage chain in Norway. The next phase of the project, which Statoil has been assigned to perform, will involve concept and pre-engineering studies in order to evaluate the possibilities in more detail, and to get accurate cost estimates towards a possible investment decision. An investment decision for project implementation is expected to be made by the Norwegian Parliament in 2019.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is seen as an important tool to reduce carbon emissions and to achieve the global climate targets as defined in the Paris Agreement.
The technologies for carbon capture and storage in geological formations are known and established. There are 21 full-scale CCS projects worldwide in the development or operations phase. Statoil’s CCS projects at Sleipner and Snøhvit are among these, and have given Statoil more than 20 years of operational carbon storage experience.
“The next big tasks are developing technology, regulations and general commercial conditions that may stimulate an extensive roll-out of CCS,” says Rummelhoff.
Future carbon storage may also help realize a hydrogen market. Hydrogen produced from natural gas generates CO2 as a by-product, and with a value chain for CO capture, transportation and storage it will be possible to further examine a full-scale value chain for hydrogen, which is a low-carbon energy solution with potentials within both power, heating and transportation.