A five-year research project to study the long-term potential for carbon-capture and storage (CCS) technology has been launched by the European Commission’s Director General for Research (Brussels). The so-called COâ‚‚ReMoVe project (for Research on COâ‚‚ Monitoring and Verification) will study the injection of COâ‚‚ at oil-and-gas field operations in the North Sea Sleipner and Snohvit fields (Norway), in the southern Saharan desert at Ih Salah (Algeria) and in the area of Ketzin (Germany). This will involve separating COâ‚‚ from natural gas produced at the fields, compressing the COâ‚‚ and injecting it into the field rather than releasing it to the atmosphere.
The objectives of the project are to prove the long-term reliability of geological storage of CO2, and to undertake the research and developoment necessary to establish scientifically based standards for monitoring future CCS operations. Among the monitoring approaches to be analyzed are 3D seismic technology, electromagnetic testing, fluid sampling from within the field and soil testing.
The project, coordinated by the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO; Delft; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6519-539), involves 28 partners from 11 different countries. The funding for the project is split between the European Commission (€8 million) and industry (€7 million). Among the industrial partners are BP,. ConoccoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Wintershall, Schulmberger, Statoil, Total and Vattenfall.