Underground return from Sleipner

Storage of CO2 under the North Sea will become a reality as early as 1996

The Sleipner West gas condensate field starts production in 1996. The crude gas from this field contains about 9.5% CO2, but the sales specifications permit a maximum of 2.5% CO2 to be present in the natural gas. Statoil, which is the operator, will remove the difference on a gas treatment platform, and the separated gas will be injected in a water-filled sand formation 1000 m below the seabed.

This will be the first project in the world to pump CO2 underground for storage purposes.

"We have based our choice of technology on both environmental considerations and the prospect of a CO2 tax. At present, the CO2 tax is related purely to combustion, rather to emissions of pure CO2. If current rates are applied to the CO2 we will have to remove on Sleipner West, it would cost us about NOK 400 million a year to release it to the atmosphere" says Sigmund Helland, Statoil´s project manager in the Sleipner operating organization.