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ABU DHABI / WAM
The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) on Wednesday announced that it is moving ahead with plans to expand the capture, storage and utilisation of carbon dioxide (CO2), produced from either the Habshan-Bab gas processing facilities or the Shah gas plant. A decision on which plant to capture the CO2 from first will be taken in 2019. The project will be engineered so as not to interrupt ongoing production from either facility.
The additional CO2 capture will reduce Adnoc’s carbon footprint — which is among the lowest in the industry — and liberate natural gas, previously used for oil field injection, for other more valuable purposes, while simultaneously addressing growing global demand for oil by boosting recovery from its maturing reservoirs.
The announcement was made at the International Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) Summit, in Edinburgh, by Omar Suwaina Al Suwaidi, Adnoc Executive Office Director, who led Adnoc’s participation at the summit. The event was attended by global energy ministers, chief executives and senior leaders from international oil and gas companies, as well as the financial community.
The discussion at the event is focussed on accelerating investment in CCUS technology, which has the potential to significantly support global CO2 emissions reduction, as well as unlock value across economies, including in the UAE.
The Shah plant — built and operated by a joint venture between Adnoc and Occidental Petroleum Corporation — is one of the world’s largest facilities processing ultra-sour gas. It processes about 1.3 billion standard cubic feet per day (scfd) of sour gas and associated condensates, which contain over 20 percent hydrogen sulfide and 10 percent CO2. By 2025, modifications to the facility would enable the gases to be captured as part of the sulfur recovery process and converted into pure CO2 for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Using advanced CCUS technology, more than 2.3 million tonnes per annum (120 million scfd) of CO2 are planned to be captured and safely locked away underground.