CO2 enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR) offers the potential for storing significant volumes of carbon dioxide emissions while increasing domestic oil production. This presentation, based on a recently completed study for DOE/NETL, examines the domestic oil resource amenable to CO2-EOR, the size of the related market for CO2, and the benefits to the power sector from CO2 sales to the EOR industry. The study finds that, depending on future oil prices and the costs for purchasing CO2 from power plants and other industrial sources, from 39 to 48 billion barrels of oil could be economically recoverable with CO2-EOR. In addition, the size of the market for CO2 offered by the EOR industry is on the order of 7,500 million metric tons between now and 2030. With advances in CO2-EOR and storage technology, the economically recoverable oil resource would increase to 54 to 70 billion barrels.
The market for CO2 from the EOR industry is examined in depth from the coal-fueled power plant industry’s standpoint. The sale of CO2 emissions captured from new coal-fueled power plants could provide significant revenue offsets to the cost of installing carbon capture technology. It is estimated these revenue offsets along with a value for carbon abatement could enable 40% (48 out of 121 GW) of the new coal-fueled power capacity expected to be built between now and 2030 to install CCS. With advances in CO2-EOR and storage technology the number of power plants with CCS could increase to 50 to 70 GWs. This would provide significant assistance toward addressing CO2 emissions from this sector, helping drive down the costs of installing CCS technology.