Jun 2008 - OPEC

The In Salah gas project in Algeria, which
is breaking new ground in the development
of carbon capture and storage. Pictured is
Sonatrach’s Krechba plant.
Sonatrach
CCS at a glance
CCS is a three-step process involving the capture of
CO2 from power plants or other industrial/natural
sources, its transportation (usually via pipelines)
and its geological storage in deep saline formations,
Myrestrand/StatoilHydro Dag
And until legislation is passed to clarify where a com- is not too ambitious a requirement.
depleted oil and gas fields, or other similar sites.
pany or government stands, for example, when it aban- The costs may come down — as they According to official estimates, CCS could account for
dons a reservoir after injecting CO2 into it, many will feel do generally — when a technology is between 15 and 55 per cent of the total worldwide
the same, he maintains.
commercialized.
carbon mitigation effort up to 2100.
Rohner expects that, eventually, CCS licences will
insist on lengthy monitoring periods, once injection has
ended. But work on legislation is already well underway.
Similarly, Rohner argues that
the cost of carbon (currently traded
at about ¤26 per tonne under the
Large-scale commercial CCS projects currently exist
in Algeria, the North Sea and Canada.
At the beginning of the year, a conference in Brussels European Union Emissions Trading
brought together a vast audience comprising representa- Scheme) is simply too low to inspire Carbon dioxide
tives of the European Parliament and Council and stake- large-scale adoption. He says that
extracted by
Statoil’s Sleipner
holders from industry to consider a proposed CCS regu- it was primarily the existence of
in the Norwegian
latory framework adopted by the European Commission. Norway’s carbon tax (of around ¤50 North Sea is stored
The proposal is now set to be discussed in the European per tonne) that made Sleipner eco- 1,000 metres below
ground instead of
Parliament and Council itself. Australia and the US are nomically viable. “A system has to
being released into
making similar strides.
be put in place so you can actually the air.
“We will probably get some sort of legislation sorted put a project on its feet,” he says.
out at the beginning of the next decade [so] we can Rohner reckons that for CCS to
start to inject in large quantities,” says Rohner. “But not make the difference that the most
before.”
ambitious politicians are calling
And then, of course, there is the cost. Just like in the for, the planet needs thousands
oil and gas industry, exploratory work means money — more Sleipners. Bear in mind that
as does the infrastructure required and the monitoring the North Sea gas rig injects more
processes involved.
than one million tonnes of CO2 every
According to Rohner, a cost of hundreds of millions year, and the challenges that Rohner
of euros for transportation pipelines alone is not out referred to at the beginning of his
of the question. Total cost estimates vary wildly from lecture are once again clear.
around $20 to $270 per tonne of CO2 avoided. Such cost But he remains unruffled: “I tell
depends on technology, CO2 purity, site characteristics you what — if the politicians are seri-
and a multitude of other variables. Many argue that the ous about this and there is a cap on
cost of capture needs to be at the low end of this spec- emissions, the CO2 price will be high
trum if the technology is to be widely adopted. But this enough.”
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