The Potential for Additional Carbon Dioxide Flooding Projects in the United States

Abstract

Abstract In recent years, sustained increases in crude oil prices and continued decline in domestic conventional production have renewed national interest in Carbon Dioxide Enhanced Oil Recovery (CO2 EOR). Growing concern about climate change and greenhouse gases has increased interest in carbon capture and sequestration. CO2 EOR provides a value added opportunity to increase crude oil production and sequester substantial volumes of industrial CO2. An analysis was conducted to determine the incremental domestic production which could be realized if industrially produced CO2 is made available for EOR. The challenges are the volumes of CO2 which can be made available, the infrastructure requirements, and the prices at which the CO2 can be made available. 1,673 potential CO2 EOR candidate reservoirs (with an estimated technical recovery of about 20 Billion barrels) were analyzed. These reservoirs were timed and developed subject to the availability of CO2 at a price economical to the EOR producer. To determine CO2 availability, a wide array of natural and industrial CO2 sources was mapped along with candidate EOR reservoirs. Potential pipeline routes were developed to determine the volume of CO2 available from each industrial source, and to calculate the tariff required to transport it to potential fields. Where volumes from concentrated sources like ethanol or hydrogen plants were insufficient for a project, several such sources were linked through gathering lines and connected to potential fields through a trunk line. The price of industrial CO2 delivered to the producer includes the capture cost and regional pipeline tariff. This price was used to determine the economics and development of EOR projects. The analysis indicates that by increasing availability of CO2 through wide-spread capture and sale of CO2 from industrial sources, and with oil prices between $45-$60/Bbl, approximately 1.2 Million barrels per day (MMBbl/d) of incremental oil production can be realized while sequestering ~300 Million tons per day (Mtn/d) of CO2. Introduction A significant opportunity has been created by the convergence of two trends: the continued decline in U.S. crude oil production and the growing concerns over climate change. U.S. conventional crude oil production continues to decline at the same time that demand for crude and finished products continues to rise. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and shown in figure 1, the U.S. demand will be above 27 MMBbl/D by 2030, while total production will be under 10 MMBbl/D1. The remaining crude and products have to be imported at substantial cost to the United States.