The In Salah Gas CO2 Storage Project

In Salah Gas is a joint venture of BP, Sonatrach and Statoil, which started in July 2004, producing 900bcf/d gas for sale in Europe. The natural gas contains up to 10%CO2, which has to be reduced to 0.3% before the gas is sold. Hence, 1 million tonnes/year CO2 is produced. Rather than vent that CO2 to the atmosphere (business as usual), this project re-injects it into the Krechba Carboniferous Sandstone reservoir via three horizontal wells at a depth of 1,900metres. CO2 injection started in August 2004 and over the life of the project, 17million tonnes CO2 will be geologically stored at a cost of $100mm ($6/tonne CO2 avoided). This project is an industrial-scale demonstration of CO2 geological storage and is the first industrial-scale project in the world to store CO2 in the water leg of a gas reservoir.