The GHGT-13 Student Reception, sponsored by G.E, was held last night, Wednesday 16th November, and began with a welcome from Sian Twinning (IEAGHG). Sian emphasised how beneficial the reception is to all attendees, as it enables students to meet and discuss what they have heard and learnt at GHGT-13 with their peers. It also allows then to connect ...
One of the latest CCS projects to begin operating in the United States is the Kemper County Energy Facility in the state of Mississippi. Richard Espoito, the Geosciences, Carbon Utilization and Storage Southern Company, programme manager, presented an up-beat account at the start of the GHGHT-13 conference on Thursday. Richard stressed the modern '...
One of the themes covered by GHGT-13 in Lausanne is the potential of combining CCS and geothermal energy. There are different ways in which geothermal energy might be used. One idea is to inject CO2 into a saline aquifer at one point and then extract heat energy from another location within the same aquifer. Doublet extraction and injection of cool...
Statoil have been operating at Sleipner since 1996 marking twenty years of injection monitoring at the site. The monitoring programme has been shown to be a success proving both conformance and containment as well as including contingency plans. Repeated seismic and gravimetric surveys have been conducted throughout the lifetime of the project alon...
A total of 10 talks discussing trapping mechanisms for CO2 were presented at GHGT-13 on Tuesday. This included new research from Stanford University (Charlotte Garing et al.) which demonstrated, through micro-CT imaging experiments, the residual trapping effects that occur at pore-scale within the reservoir (and the impact of capillary pressu...
As part of the Risk Assessment session held at GHGT-13, Scott Frailey from the Illinois State Geological Survey spoke about the issues surrounding the variety of techniques currently used to calculate storage resource and their associated uncertainties. He announced that The Society of Petroleum Engineers CCS Technical Section is forming a multi‐so...
The GHGT-13 plenary session on Wednesday 16th November opened with an upbeat assessment of the Quest CO2 storage demonstration site in the Canadian province of Alberta. Tim Wiwchar, who is Shell Canada's Portfolio Manager Heavy Oil, presented a summary of the progress since this flagship project started operating in November 2015. Quest was built o...
CO2 storage relies on the injection of the gas either via pre-existing wellbores or, in the future, new wells. CO2 is potentially corrosive and in certain conditions can induce rapid cooling. Both conditions are detrimental to wellbores so it's important to understand how these conditions occur and what mitigation options are available. The G...
As I spoke to open GHGT-13 today COP22 is underway in Marrakech. It is worth reflecting on the historic agreement that was made at the preceding COP21 meeting held in Paris last year. Paris set us the added aspiration of a new global temperature target of below 20C, even though we are working towards a 20C target. We know very well that even ...
The 50th bi-annual IEAGHG ExCo meeting has come to a close in the beautiful Swiss city of Lausanne. The two day IEAGHG Executive Committee meeting began on Saturday 12th November and was held in the excellent Hôtel de la Paix. This regular meeting is held twice yearly, at different locations across the world each time, and gives IEAGHG an opportuni...
The Swiss are making an important commitment to long-term CO2 storage through international collaboration and research. This is notably evident at the Mont Terri Rock Laboratory situated in the Jura Mountains about two hours drive north of Lausanne. This facility has been deliberately constructed within an impermeable shale called the Opalinu...
The geomechanics session at GHGT-13 in Lausanne has covered a variety of topics including the value of studying natural analogues. Useful insights into CO2 migration within formations can be gained especially where fractures provide natural conduits for geochemical alteration. Exposures of the Jurassic Entrada formation in Utah provide an exc...
The US DOE's annual Carbon Storage R&D Project Review Meeting was held in Pittsburgh this week. These meetings present all the current DOE funded research and development projects in CO2 storage, and are impressive gatherings of US research activity. This year it was combined with the DOE's oil and natural gas technologies research review...
The report is now published of the workshop on Offshore Geological CO2 Storage which was held on 19-21 April, 2016 at the Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG) at The University of Texas, Austin, Texas, USA. The workshop was organized by the Gulf Coast Carbon Center at BEG, IEAGHG, and the South African National Energy Development Institute, and w...
The 11th meeting of the IEAGHG's Monitoring Network and the 6th meeting of the Modelling Network took place in Edinburgh last week, as a combined meeting, hosted by BGS and SCCS. These meetings bring together leading experts from research and industry to discuss the latest work and developments, with around 60 participants from 11 countries at this...
This year this annual CCUS Conference moved from its recent past location in Pittsburgh to Tysons Corner, Virginia (near Washington DC). Over three days, some 200 attendees listened to 65 presentations given in four parallel streams. There was great interest in the two presentations were made on the Occidental MRV plan which had been approved...
The 49th bi-annual IEAGHG ExCo meeting has come to a close in the beautiful Norweigen city of Bergen. Hosted by Gassnova, the meeting began on the 10th May with a visit to the Technology Centre Mongstad. This centre is the world's largest facility for testing and improving CO2 capture. Knowledge gained will prepare the ground for CO2 capture ...
With thanks to the Gulf Coast Carbon Center for this article The Gulf Coast Carbon Center was delighted to host the first International Workshop on Offshore Geologic CO2 Storage. GCCC's Katherine Romanak was instrumental in organizing the workshop with IEAGHG's Tim Dixon, who is currently an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at BEG. Dixon empha...
The world of offshore CCS gathered together over the 19-21 April 2016 at the Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG) at The University of Texas, Austin, Texas, for a workshop on offshore geological storage of CO2. The workshop was organized by the Gulf Coast Carbon Centre at BEG, IEAGHG, and the South African National Energy Development Institute, a...
I was honoured to be invited to give the opening keynote at the UKCCSRC Biannual Meeting in Manchester on 13 April (talking on COP-21 and CCS). It was especially rewarding to see the UKCCSRC's Call 1 and Call 2 projects now producing results and I was sorry to only be able to attend the first day. Howard Hertzog presented a plenary talk revie...
