CO2 storage

Over the coming years, millions of tonnes of CO₂ will be captured from major factories and power stations. But what shall we do with it? Let’s put it back where it came from!

During the 1990s, the Norwegian oil company Statoil had a problem. The natural gas they were producing at the Sleipner field contained far too much CO₂ for European gas buyers. They had to get rid of the CO₂. This occurs in many gas fields around the world – CO₂ is extracted and released into the atmosphere. However, the Sleipner development was a special case due to the fact that Norway, as the first country in the world, introduced a tax on CO₂. This gave Statoil an incentive to think creatively.

Skilled engineers discovered that by injecting CO₂ down into the 400 kilometre-long Utsira Formation they could both get rid of the CO₂ and extract the water they needed to inject into the oil field to maintain the pressure, while at the same time avoiding having to pay the CO₂ charge. Three birds with one stone! Since 1996, a million tonnes of CO₂ a year have been stored in the Utsira Formation, and scientists have confirmed that the formation is intact. The stored CO₂ has behaved as expected and remained in the reservoir. The Utsira Formation in the North Sea consists of a long layer of sandstone and has the capacity to store many billions of tonnes of CO₂. In other words, it provides safe storage space for centuries.