Page 14 - NorthAmOil Week 46

NorthAmOil COMMENTARY NorthAmOil

capacity to 5mn tpy by 2024 and 7mn tpy by much in the way of action since the 2018 presi-
2027, hailing the project as the largest CCS dential election. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador,
investment in the Middle East and North Africa. the populist candidate who won that vote, has
Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is also at the shelved CCS initiatives, arguing that the Mexi-
forefront of the Middle East’s carbon, capture, can government does not have the funds needed
utilisation and storage (CCUS) push, with the to pursue such projects.
circular carbon economy firmly in the sights of Meanwhile, Brazil’s national oil company
NOCs Saudi Aramco and ADNOC. (NOC) Petrobras is looking for ways to integrate
Aramco has been working on CO2-based CCS into its upstream operations. To this end, it
EOR at the ‘Uthmaniyah field in Eastern Prov- has launched Latin America’s only operational
ince. This received a boost from the recent pilot CCS scheme: a group of pilot facilities off the
project launched with Japan’s Institute of Energy coast of Rio de Janeiro. These facilities, located
Economics to generate blue ammonia from aboard four floating production, storage and
hydrogen produced from hydrocarbons, with off-loading (FPSO) vessels, capture and inject
the resultant CO2 being split between the Jubail CO2 into three oilfields in the offshore San-
Methanol plant and EOR at ‘Uthmaniyah. tos basin – Lapa, Lula and Sapinhoá. The CO2
Meanwhile, ADNOC last week agreed a injections help maintain reservoir pressure and
deal with French super-major Total to explore maximise yields while also curbing emissions.
opportunities in emissions reductions and The CCS project has been in operation since
CCUS. The Emirati firm has plans to cut 2013 and has already injected 10mn tonnes of
greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity by 25% by CO2 into the fields. Petrobras hopes to bring the
2030, while its 800,000 tpy Al Reyadah CCUS total up to 40mn tonnes by 2025.
facility is expected to grow rapidly with a tar- The NOC also serves as the head of the Brazil-
get in place to capture 5mn tpy of CO2 by the ian CCS Network, which published a CO2 stor-
same date. age atlas for the country in 2015. The network
Oman has long been leading the pack in has also started work on at least 20 CCS research
terms of EOR and the Sultanate is also develop- projects with the goal of supporting innovations
ing a commercial-scale hydrogen facility at the in the capture, transport and storage of CO2.
port of Duqm as Muscat seeks to diversify its
economy away from oil and gas. South Africa
To the north, however, flaring remains South Africa has been one of the key players in
commonplace in Iraq, though initiatives are CCS initiatives in Africa. Its government formed
ramping up to monetise gas and reduce emis- the South African Centre for Carbon Capture &
sions. Meanwhile, it is worth noting that certain Storage (SACCCS), a division of the state-owned
international operators developing assets in the South African National Energy Development
Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq have reported Institute (SANEDI), in 2009. In turn, SANEDI
less than 8kg of CO2 equivalent per barrel of oil became a member of the Global CCS Institute
equivalent (kgCO2e/boe), far below some of the in 2019.
region’s top producers. Aramco, for example, To date, SACCCS and SANEDI have mostly
last year reported an upstream carbon intensity focused on investigation of the technical feasi- South Africa’s
of 10.1 kgCO2e/boe. bility of proposed CO2 storage options. How-
ever, they have also launched a Pilot Monitoring interest in CCS is
Latin America Project (PMP) to build the country’s capacity for not limited to the
Efforts to develop CCS capacity are at a relatively CO2 monitoring. The project is in line with the
early stage in Latin America. The two countries CCS Roadmap strategy document adopted by public sector.
in the region that show the most promise on this the South African cabinet in 2012, and it is due
front are Mexico and Brazil, which have esti- to be followed with a carbon capture pilot plant
mated CO2 storage potential of 100bn tonnes (CCPP), for which the World Bank will provide
and 4 trillion tonnes respectively. Both have a technical assessment.
explored their options and have launched a South Africa’s interest in CCS is not limited
number of pilot projects, but Brazil has made to the public sector. Sasol, which is the coun-
more progress. try’s biggest corporate taxpayer, rolled out a
In Mexico, the Energy Ministry suggested in new 10-year carbon transformation plan just
its 2014 “Technology Roadmap on CCS” that last week. The company – which happens to be
the government establish a national CCS strat- the operator one of the world’s largest individual
egy and inventory, as well as a centre for techno- sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions,
logical research, development and testing. Since the Secunda coal-to-liquids (CTL) plant – is
then, it has updated the report, identified a num- currently in the first phase of its carbon transfor-
ber of research priorities and proposed several mation campaign. This plan aims to cut the com-
exploratory projects. pany’s CO2 emissions by 10% on 2017 baseline
Nevertheless, the country has not taken levels by 2030.™

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