Enhanced Oil Recovery
The Physics of CO2 Enhanced Oil Recovery
From the DoE National Energy Technology Lab.
- "Carbon Dioxide Enhanced Oil Recovery: Untapped Domestic Energy Supply and Long Term Carbon Storage Solution" - March 2010
Shell Oil’s Denver Unit in the Wasson Field in West Texas CO2 EOR work provided an additional 120 million incremental barrels or more of oil from 1981 thru 2008. A barrel of oil typically comes in at 300 lb and contains 82-85% carbon. If all that carbon is used for fuel, total CO2 emissions equivalent are:
- 120,000,000 * 300 * 0.82 * 46/ (14 * 2204) tonnes CO2 = 44.0 million tonnes of CO2.
The United States leads the world in both the number of CO2 EOR projects and in the volume of CO2 EOR oil production, in large part because of favorable geology. The Permian Basin covering West Texas and southeastern New Mexico has the lion’s share of the world’s CO2 EOR activity for two reasons: reservoirs there are particularly amenable to CO2 flooding, and large natural sources of high purity CO2 are relatively close. However, a growing number of CO2 EOR projects are being launched in other regions, based on the availability of low cost CO2. See Bravo Dome & Pipeline
Numbers on CO2 used were not discernable.