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Concurrent 21. Presentation for: CO2 EOR potential in the Cooper and Surat basins – a cost-effective pathway to reduce CO2 emissions

Paul Barraclough A *
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A CO2CRC limited, 11–15 Argyle Place South, Carlton, Vic. 3053, Australia.

* Correspondence to: paul.barraclough@co2crc.com.au

The APPEA Journal 62 - https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ21375
Published: 3 June 2022

Abstract

Presented on Thursday 19 May: Session 21

This paper discusses the potential for storing CO2 and producing lower carbon intensity oil from onshore oil fields in the Cooper and Surat basins of South Australia and Queensland. A comprehensive database was compiled for the oil fields in the basins above, including the key required data to assess the potential of the basins for CO2 enhanced oil recovery (EOR). The South Australia and Queensland oil field databases contain 140 reservoirs with a combined original oil in-place of 1497 million barrels. These reservoirs have, to date, produced a total of 382 million barrels, with 458 million barrels of expected ultimate recovery (EUR). The database was compiled with support from Santos, Bridgeport, and Beach Energy. These reservoirs were screened further based on their size and pressure. The next step was to model the application of a CO2 flood in each of the shortlisted reservoirs using the CO2 EOR Prophet model developed by Advanced Resources International. The modelling showed that joint implementation of CO2 storage and CO2 EOR would allow the Cooper and Surat basins to store 116–158 million metric tons of CO2 and produce 248–518 million barrels of additional oil. Creating hubs and clustering fields based on their geographical location helps to reduce the cost of infrastructure and CO2 transportation. Therefore, the reservoirs in this study, were grouped and anchored to the most dominant oil reservoir that has the largest CO2 storage and EOR capacity. The results of the clusters are summarised in this paper.

To access the presentation click the link on the right. To read the full paper click here

Keywords: adding to Australia's net reserves through EOR, CCUS, CO2 EOR, CO2 storage, Cooper Basin, EOR potential Australia, oil recovery, optimising EOR fields for maximum CO2 sequestration, Surat Basin, utilising EOR fields for CO2 storage.

Paul Barraclough is an Oil and Gas Professional that has worked internationally in a career of over 20 years. Opportunities with the industry’s largest Oil and Gas service company, working within the Reservoir Characterisation Group, in more than a dozen countries and several highly technical field and office-based roles with a continuing focus on reservoir measurements and characterisation as well as supporting roles with personnel and HSE. His current role with CO2CRC Ltd, commenced in 2018 and focuses on the delivery of large demonstration projects, specifically the Stage 3 Project, which facilitated the testing of efficient and economic sub-surface monitoring solutions for the CCS industry. More recently, additional projects have also been a key focus of the role, covering Underground H2 Storage, management of the Otway International Test Centre (OITC), and various technical and feasibility studies looking into CCS scoping and capacity studies, external project review and third-party validation and depleted reservoir feasibility for CCS.