Former UK oil wells could be turned into CO2 landfill test sites | Oil

Depleted oil and gas wells would be turned next year into the UK’s first deep test sites for carbon dioxide burial, under plans by a consortium of universities and companies energetic.

There are hundreds of active onshore oil and gas wells in the UK. But as they reach the end of their life, some must be redeployed for CO pumping tests.₂ underground and watch it to make sure it doesn’t escape, the group said. Test wells could also be used to assess how hydrogen can be stored underground.

CO₂ According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and UK official advisers, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), Capture and Storage (CCS) will play an important role in tackling the crisis climate. Reservoirs under the North Sea offer the greatest potential for CO storage₂ from burning fossil fuels, but the consortium said reusing existing terrestrial wells was the fastest and cheapest way to research and develop safe and efficient systems.

The Net Zero Rise (Underground Energy Research Infrastructure) project involves the universities of Newcastle, Oxford and Durham, as well as fossil fuel companies IGas and Third Energy.

He identified 20 candidate wells, mainly in Yorkshire and the Midlands. A CCS test site would bury a relatively small amount of CO₂, about 1000 tonnes, at a depth of 1 to 3 km. The cost of reallocating one well, two monitoring wells and monitoring equipment would be around £ 5million, the group said.

“CO₂ storage in the North Sea is probably going to be very large, but we need a capacity on land, a national asset, so that we can do some testing and see what monitoring is adequate to understand where the CO is₂ is gone, ”said Professor Richard Davies, from the University of Newcastle, who is leading the project.

“If we don’t do it soon, we’ll lose an opportunity to use this infrastructure,” he said, as depleted wells are usually filled with cement. “These assets are already there, while the drilling [new] drilling is very expensive and adds some risk. The range of boreholes available to us will also provide opportunities to test different types of rocks. “

Test sites already exist in the United States, Canada and Australia, but Davies said the British facilities would be better because they could have a geology very similar to that of the North Sea. The British Geological Survey also examines the case of underground CO₂ storage research laboratory.

Hydrogen is seen as part of the shift to a low carbon economy and being able to store it underground would help ensure a secure energy supply. It is a tiny molecule and large rock salt formations are probably the best for trapping gas, but the UK has few such deposits.

“We also want to look at the hydrogen,” Davies said. “Could it penetrate the sandstone sealed by shale, a fine-grained, low-permeability rock?” Can we monitor the hydrogen underground if it were to be stored there?

A CCS project in the Sleipner gas field in the North Sea pumped millions of tonnes of CO₂ under the seabed since 1996. “This is a pioneering project, in that they have proven that it can be done on a large scale and over a long period of time, and that they can monitor it effectively,” said Davies. “But it’s not a test facility open to other organizations – it’s an Equinor project – and it’s in one type of rock formation.”

The government’s net zero strategy foresees 50 million tonnes of CO₂ captured and stored by the mid-1930s, and ministers are supporting the development of CCS hubs on the north-west and east coasts of England.

CCC projects up to 95 million tonnes of CCS by 2050, mainly to capture CO₂ of burnt biomass, which removes CO₂ atmosphere, as well as gas-fired power stations and hydrogen production plants.

Energy company IGas owns around 100 oil and gas wells in England and its development director, Ross Glover, said CCS was a ‘key element’ in the company’s transition to a low-carbon economy. . He said IGas is branching out into geothermal and solar power, although he has not set a date to end oil and gas production.

Glover said industrial factories, cement plants and incinerators located inland, far from coastal CCS clusters, may be able to bury their carbon emissions in reused terrestrial sinks.

“[The government] has identified a series of transmitters along the backbone of the country that have, frankly, a problem moving forward. There is a real opportunity in and around the East Midlands for us, ”he said.

Mike Childs, Scientific Director of Friends of the Earth, said: “Research into CCS technology is important, but the embers of the potential of this technology could be eradicated if fossil fuel companies were allowed to use it to green their homes. climatic demolition. activity. Fossil fuel companies are always looking to extract more oil and gas.