CO2 from Natural Gas Sweetening to Kick-Start EOR in the North Sea

The cost of CO2 removal from natural gas with subsequent storage is estimated and the results show that it can be very close to an economically viable process. The cost of removing CO2 from a natural gas stream(sweetening) using the MDEA process is 30% lower than cost of conventional amine MEA technology for CO2 capture from flue gas, putting this project at a much lower cost than capture from most other industrial CO2 sources. The cost of CO2 removal is as low as 35% tonne. In addition natural gas sweetening projects will capture potentially larger volumes of CO2 than many industrial projects if new large gas fields are developed. The large scale could provide the necessary amount and steady supply of CO2 needed to kick-start the deployment of CCS. This could happen either by allowing a large-scale offshore central CO2 storage or offshore EOR projects. Large scale storage would reduce the storage cost for CO2 improving the cost benefit situation for a CCS project. A large scale EOR project could create a market for CO2 in the Nordic region that also land-based industry can sell to thereby reducing their costs for CCS sufficiently to allow industrial CCS projects to start. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.