Offshore Storage Options for CO2 in the Netherlands

Abstract This paper presents the results from an assessment of high-capacity storage options in the offshore area of The Netherlands. For deep saline formations, available regional geological maps were combined with fault structures derived from seismic data to reveal the compartmentalization of prospective reservoir formations. Adding knowledge concerning these formations from offshore oil and gas activities and concerning the behavior of gas fields located in these formations, resulted in a shortlist of lowest-risk, potential storage locations with a total theoretical capacity of about 1.5 GtCO 2 . A high-level risk analysis was performed for offshore gas fields. The largest offshore gas fields add another 350 MtCO 2 . The development of saline formations and gas fields is outlined; while a gas field can be converted from production to storage in 5-6 yrs, it takes at least 7 yrs to develop CO 2 storage in a saline formation that has not been accessed before for hydrocarbon production.