CO₂ from natural gas sweetening to kick-start EOR in the North Sea

The cost of CO₂ removal from natural gas with subsequent storage is estimated and the results show that it can be very close to an economically viable process. The cost of removing CO₂ from a natural gas stream(sweetening) using the MDEA process is 30% lower than cost of conventional amine MEA technology for CO₂ capture from flue gas, putting this project at a much lower cost than capture from most other industrial CO₂ sources. The cost of CO₂ removal is as low as 35€/tonne. In addition natural gas sweetening projects will capture potentially larger volumes of CO₂ than many industrial projects if new large gas fields are developed. The large scale could provide the necessary amount and steady supply of CO₂ needed to kick-start the deployment of CCS. This could happen either by allowing a large-scale offshore central CO₂ storage or offshore EOR projects. Large scale storage would reduce the storage cost for CO₂ improving the cost benefit situation for a CCS project. A large scale EOR project could create a market for CO₂ in the Nordic region that also land-based industry can sell to thereby reducing their costs for CCS sufficiently to allow industrial CCS projects to start.