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Screening Australia's Basins for CO2 Enhanced Oil Recovery

CO<sub>2</sub> enhanced oil recovery (CO<sub>2</sub>-EOR) is a proven technology that can extend the life of oil fields, permanently store CO<sub>2</sub>, and improve the recovery of oil and condensate over time. Although CO<sub>2</sub>-EOR has been used successfully for decades, particularly in the United States, it has not gained traction in Australia to date. In this study, we assemble and evaluate data relevant to CO<sub>2</sub>-EOR for Australia’s key oil and condensate producing basins, and develop a national-scale, integrated basin ranking that shows which regions have the best overall conditions for CO<sub>2</sub>-EOR. The primary goals of our study are to determine whether Australia’s major hydrocarbon provinces exhibit suitable geological and oil characteristics for successful CO<sub>2</sub>-EOR activities and to rank the potential of these basins for CO<sub>2</sub>-EOR. Each basin is assessed based on the key parameters that contribute to a successful CO<sub>2</sub>-EOR prospect: oil properties (API gravity), pressure, temperature, reservoir properties (porosity, permeability, heterogeneity), availability of CO<sub>2</sub> for EOR operations, and infrastructure to support EOR operations. The top three ranked basins are the onshore Bowen-Surat, Cooper-Eromanga and offshore Gippsland Basins, which are all in relatively close proximity to the large east coast energy/oil markets. A significant factor that differentiates these three basins from the others considered in this study is their relatively good access to CO<sub>2</sub> and well-developed infrastructure. The next three most suitable basins are located offshore on the Northwest Shelf (Browse, Carnarvon, and Bonaparte Basins). While these three basins have mostly favourable oil properties and reservoir conditions, the sparse CO<sub>2</sub> sources and large distances involved lead to lower scores overall. The Canning and Amadeus Basins rank the lowest among the basins assessed, being relatively immature and remote hydrocarbon provinces, and lacking the required volumes of CO<sub>2</sub> or infrastructure to economically implement CO<sub>2</sub>-EOR. In addition to ranking the basins for successful implementation of CO<sub>2</sub>-EOR, we also provide some quantification of the potential recoverable oil in the various basins. These estimates used the oil and condensate reserve numbers that are available from national databases combined with application of internationally observed tertiary recovery factors. Additionally, we estimate the potential mass of CO<sub>2</sub> that would be required to produce these potential recoverable oil and condensate resources. In the large oil- and condensate-bearing basins, such as the Carnarvon and Gippsland Basins, some scenarios require over a billion tonnes of CO<sub>2</sub> to unlock the full residual resource, which points to CO<sub>2</sub> being the limiting factor for full-scale CO<sub>2</sub>-EOR development. Even taking a conservative view of the available resources and potential extent of CO<sub>2</sub>-EOR implementation, sourcing sufficient amounts of CO<sub>2</sub> for large-scale deployment of the technology presents a significant challenge.


<b>Citation:</b> Tenthorey, E., Kalinowski, A., Wintle, E., Bagheri, M., Easton, L., Mathews, E., McKenna, J., Taggart, I. 2022. Screening Australia’s Basins for CO2-Enhanced Oil Recovery (December 6, 2022). <i>Proceedings of the 16th Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies Conference (GHGT-16) 23-24 Oct 2022</i>, Available at SSRN: <a href=" https://ssrn.com/abstract=4294743">https://ssrn.com/abstract=4294743</a> or <a href=" http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4294743">http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4294743</a>

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Identification info

Date (Creation)
2022-12-06T11:00:00
Date (Publication)
2023-11-29T03:11:10
Citation identifier
Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/149023

Cited responsible party
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Author

Tenthorey, E.

Internal Contact
Author

Kalinowski, A.

Internal Contact
Author

Wintle, E.

Internal Contact
Author

Bagheri, M.

External Contact
Author

Easton, L.

External Contact
Author

Mathews, E.

External Contact
Author

McKenna, J.

External Contact
Author

Taggart, I.

External Contact
Publisher

Elsevier Ltd

External Contact
Name

16th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies, (GHGT-16), 23-27 October 2022, Lyon, France

Purpose

The paper presented and written for GHGT-16 held in Lyon, France from the 23-24 October 2022.

Status
Completed
Point of contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Resource provider

Minerals, Energy and Groundwater Division

External Contact
Point of contact

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

Voice
Point of contact

Tenthorey, E.

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  • Geoscientific information

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W


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Title

Product data repository: Various Formats

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Data Store directory containing the digital product files

Data Store directory containing one or more files, possibly in a variety of formats, accessible to Geoscience Australia staff only for internal purposes

Project
  • Carbon Capture and Storage

Project
  • enhanced oil recovery

Keywords
  • EFTF – Exploring For The Future

Keywords
  • Australia's Future Energy Resources

Keywords
  • enhanced oil recovery

Keywords
  • Carbon Capture and Storage

theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf
  • Resource geoscience

Keywords
  • Published_External

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Title

All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies. For all open access content, the Creative Commons licensing terms apply.

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https://www.ssrn.com/index.cfm/en/terms-of-use/

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Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc., its licensors, and contributors

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Title

Australian Government Security Classification System

Edition date
2018-11-01T00:00:00
Website

https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Classification
Unclassified
Classification system

Australian Government Security Classification System

Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8

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Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

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Link to Paper

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<div>Final published journal article.</div>

Metadata constraints

Title

Australian Government Security Classification System

Edition date
2018-11-01T00:00:00
Website

https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Classification
Unclassified

Metadata

Metadata identifier
urn:uuid/da1beacd-7bb1-4803-a2ec-808935342d99

Title

GeoNetwork UUID

Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8
Contact
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Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

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Patterson, C.

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Name

Journal Article / Conference Paper

Alternative metadata reference

Title

Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with

uuid

Citation identifier
eCatId/149023

Metadata linkage

https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/da1beacd-7bb1-4803-a2ec-808935342d99

Date info (Creation)
2023-11-01T05:19:20
Date info (Revision)
2023-11-01T05:19:20

Metadata standard

Title

AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115-1:2014

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115-3

Title

Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014

Edition

Version 2.0, September 2018

Citation identifier
http://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551

 
 

Spatial extent

N
S
E
W


Keywords

Carbon Capture and Storage enhanced oil recovery
theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf
Resource geoscience

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