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.