Date published: 2006/03/08
The BBC says:
British and Norwegian oil companies have announced plans to bury carbon dioxide under the bed of the North Sea.
Statoil and Shell plan to take CO2 from a power station in Norway and pipe it to an oil field, where it will be used to force oil to the surface.
The $1.2bn-1.5bn scheme will require major investment from governments.
The process of carbon sequestration is viewed by some as a partial solution to climate change, but can also help companies exploit oil reserves further.
Statoil already extracts carbon dioxide from a natural gas well in its Sleipner field and stores it under the sea bed, while schemes using compressed CO2 to enhance oil recovery are already running in North America.
The companies say their North Sea venture would be the world's largest enhanced oil recovery project.
Statoil would extract CO2 produced by a new natural gas-fired power station on the Norwegian coast.
It would then be pumped to Shell's Draugen oilfield and injected into oil-bearing strata, forcing more oil to the surface.
Electricity from the power station would run a nearby gas terminal established largely to export gas to the UK.
Elements of the project could be phased in from 2010, with CO2 also being piped later to Statoil's Heidrun field.
Well good for Statoil and Shell for pushing this technology further. But do they really need "major investment from governments"?
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