Nomination of areas for storage of CO2

Published  2011-06-26

Maritimeandenergy.com

Minister of Petroleum and Energy Ola Borten Moe has invited the industry to nominate areas in the North Sea and Norwegian Sea that might be suited for exploration for reservoirs for storage of carbon dioxide (CO 2).

The CO2 will come from Mongstad and other sources in combination with Mongstad, and the deadline for nominations is 4 October 2011.

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) will, on assignment from the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy (MPE), perform the technical appraisal of the nominated areas. The appraisal will be based on the work done by the NPD in connection with CO2 storage.

The NPD has been working on issues relating to capture, transport and storage for several years now. According to plan, the directorate will submit an atlas of potential storage areas to the MPE at the end of 2011.

This is the first time that Norwegian authorities have held a license round for storage of CO2 on the Norwegian shelf. Eva Halland, the NPD’s coordinator for storage of CO2 on the Norwegian shelf, hopes that the companies will show interest:

”We are, of course, hoping that the oil companies will get involved in this,” Halland emphasises.

Norway has broad-ranging expertise and experience with storage of CO2. CO2 has been stored under the seabed off Norway for several years, first in the Sleipner area in the North Sea, later at Snøhvit in the Barents Sea.

The invitation has been sent to all licensees on the Norwegian shelf, and will also be announced in Norsk Lysningsblad (The Official Journal of Norway), so that other interested companies can nominate areas.

”Transport and storage of CO2 from Mongstad will be one of the first projects of its kind where CO2 from a full-scale capture facility is transported in pipelines for storage in the continental shelf. I want to facilitate the participation of companies that have established experience in this area,” says Borten Moe.

The nominations from the companies will form part of the basis when the Ministry makes its assessments in connection with announcement of areas for surveys and exploration for subsea reservoirs for permanent storage of CO2.

Source: Nortrade