Norway - Carbon Sequestration Too Expensive For Its Oil Wells - Reuters

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OSLO - "Pumping greenhouse gases into oil wells off Norway is too costly as a way to boost oil output while easing global warming, Norway's Petroleum Directorate (NPD) said on Tuesday. "Technology and costs make CO2 (carbon dioxide) injection too expensive and risky for the licensees on the Norwegian shelf," the NPD said in a report to the Norwegian government.

Many oil companies pump water or gas into offshore oil wells to boost pressure and so force more oil to the surface. In the United States, CO2 injection has been used successfully for 30 years at some fields on land. But the NPD study said it would cost too much to try to do the same off Norway with carbon dioxide, the main gas from human activities widely blamed for accumulating in the atmosphere and driving up global temperatures.

"Today companies make long-term investments assuming oil prices of about $18 a barrel," Gunnar Berge, head of the NPD, told Reuters. With CO2 injection "it would mean oil prices of $30 to be profitable." "Considerably better technology is needed to obtain CO2 at lower costs," he said. Norway is the world's number three oil exporter behind Saudi Arabia and Russia.

High costs of transporting CO2 -- emitted by power plants, cars and factories -- by ship or pipeline meant that it was too costly compared to more easily available water. "Studies conducted on fields in the North Sea -- Gullfaks, Ekofisk, Brage and Forties -- show that the effect of CO2 injection is not as successful," the report said."

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http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/30582/story.htm

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