Carbon dioxide-enhanced oil recovery in Australia – techno-economic evaluation, carbon dioxide source/sink networks and current policy landscape

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a techno-economics analysis to quantify the potential for storing CO2 and producing lower carbon intensity oil from mature, onshore Australian oil fields located in the Cooper/Eromanga and Surat/Bowen Basins. The work explores the impact of incentivisation, identifies possible sources of CO2 to support CO2-EOR (enhanced oil recovery) deployment, and discusses global CO2-EOR policy. The hypothetical ‘carbon incentive’ assessed in this study resulted in unlocking an additional 40 million metric tons (Mt) of CO2 storage and 73 million barrels (MMBO) of domestic oil production compared to the base case scenario that most closely represent Australia’s current policy and economic settings. Further, the results of this study indicated that, with incentivisation, net-negative carbon dioxide emissions could be achieved by deploying CO2-EOR practices in certain mature oil fields. The study found that there are currently sufficient industrial sources of CO2, particularly from black coal-fired power generation and hard-to-abate industries such as cement and steel production, to support this deployment. An opportunity to explore the co-development of ‘stacked storage’ using both CO2-EOR and concurrent geologic storage of CO2 in adjacent, unconnected reservoirs is proposed. This may significantly reduce development costs compared to stand-alone geologic storage projects, providing more favourable techno-economics, and accelerating the physical connection of CO2 sources and sinks.