Perenco UK concluded the UK’s first carbon dioxide (CO2) injection test for carbon capture and storage (CCS) at Project Poseidon in the UK’s Southern North Sea (SNS). The company said the operation proved that carbon storage is viable for depleted SNS fields and that it is possible to reuse petroleum production infrastructure for this purpose.
The test injected CO2 into a depleted natural gas reservoir in Leman gas field with a total of 15 injection cycles. This was the first CO2 injection test to support carbon storage in UK waters (OGJ Online, Feb. 11, 2025). In total, the test delivered 11 CO2 offshore batch refills.
Leman offers a mixture of depleted gas reservoirs and saline aquifers in which to permanently store recovered CO2. The project has the potential to significantly decarbonize East Anglia, Greater London, and the wider southeast UK. Initial CO2 injection rates will be about 1.5 million tonnes/year (tpy), ramping up to 10 million tpy by 2030, and peaking at 40 million tpy by 2040.
Petrodec’s ERDA, the first rig in the UK approved for CO2 injection support, has now sailed away from the Leman 27H platform.
Project Poseidon joint venture partners include Perenco, Carbon Catalyst Ltd., and Harbour Energy.
Alex Procyk | Upstream Editor
Alex Procyk is Upstream Editor at Oil & Gas Journal. He has also served as a principal technical professional at Halliburton and as a completion engineer at ConocoPhillips. He holds a BS in chemistry (1987) from Kent State University and a PhD in chemistry (1992) from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).
