ADNOC plans sixfold hike in carbon dioxide injection

Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. plans a sixfold increase in injection of carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery during the next 10 years as it expands capacity for CO₂ capture and storage.

In a program it calls carbon capture, use, and storage (CCUS), the company will extend gas collection to its own operations.

Through Al Reyadah, until this month a partnership with Masdar, Abu Dhabi Future Energy Co., it has injected into reservoirs at Rumaitha and Bab oil fields about 240,000 tonnes of CO₂ captured from Emirates Steel Industries (OGJ Online, Nov. 7, 2016).

Al Reyadah moves CO₂ from the steel facility to the fields through a 43-km pipeline. It can sequester 800,000 tonnes/year of CO₂.

With CO₂ from its gas processing plants, ADNOC will begin increasing the oil-field injection rate in 2021 to an expected 250 MMscfd by 2027, freeing for other uses natural gas now reinjected for EOR.

ADNOC claims to have become, in 2009, the first national oil company to conduct pilot tests of CO₂ injection for EOR. It teamed with Masdar to develop Al Reyadah in 2016 and this month announced its purchase of Masdar’s 49% of the CCUS business.

The oil company will integrate its 100% interest in Al Reyadah into ADNOC Onshore.

ADNOC has a longstanding goal of increasing ultimate recovery to 70% of oil originally in place (OGJ Online, May 29, 2012).