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Advocates: Use of Industrial Waste Product Can Increase Oil Output

Posted on: Friday, 16 September 2005, 21:00 CDT

Sep. 16--An industrial waste product has become an unlikely key to increasing oil production while also cleaning up the environment.

If the process becomes more efficient and widely used, industry and environmental protection advocates say, captured carbon dioxide could revitalize production at older oil wells while also removing from the atmosphere a chemical that has been called one of the chief causes of global warming.

Chaparral Energy of Oklahoma City is one of the leading companies in the effort to capture and reuse carbon dioxide in Oklahoma. The company has two carbon dioxide projects ongoing in the state and plans to expand the program over the next decade, President Mark Fisher said.

"Initially there was no question that we did these projects for the additional oil we could recover, but as time went on, the benefits of capturing carbon dioxide became a bigger and bigger issue," Fisher said.

Carbon dioxide has been used for decades to increase production from older oil fields, but most companies have pumped carbon dioxide from natural reservoirs deep below the surface and then reinjected the gas into oil reservoirs.

Chaparral, Houston-based Anadarko Petroleum and a few other companies, however, use carbon dioxide created through man-made industrial processes, or so-called "anthropogenic" gas.

"This process is of intense interest at the U.S. Department of Energy and other agencies because of its benefits both to the environment and to energy production," said David Fleischaker, Oklahoma energy secretary and former environmental attorney in Washington.

The effort also has drawn support from those who do not subscribe to the theory that manmade processes are leading to global warming.

"Although I do not believe (carbon dioxide) is harming our climate, it is certainly an unpopular component of industrial waste," said Bruce Bell, chairman of the Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association of Oklahoma. "If you could capture that gas and use it in a waterflood, that is without question a win-win situation."

Chaparral draws about 40 million cubic feet of carbon dioxide per day from a Koch Industries fertilizer plant in Enid and transports the gas more than 160 miles to Velma in southern Oklahoma where it is pumped into the ground. Anadarko transports carbon dioxide from the same Enid plant about 120 miles to oil fields near Lindsay.

In another project, Chaparral pumps about 7 million cubic feet of carbon dioxide per day from the Agrium fertilizer plant in Borger, Texas, to its field in the Oklahoma Panhandle, although that project is expected to double in size within the next six months, Fisher said.

"We're expanding the carbon dioxide injection process we have under way, and we would like to tie into additional plants in the future," Fisher said.

Carbon dioxide flooding typically increases production only by a few barrels a day, but spread over enough wells, the process can be quite profitable, Fisher said. His company has increased daily production at its Panhandle field from 90 barrels a day to 680 barrels a day using only carbon dioxide flooding and without drilling any new wells.

Fisher said he hopes to increase production in the area to 2,500 barrels a day within the next few years.

Extracting carbon dioxide from a chemical plant and piping the gas across the state generally adds about 70 to 90 cents per barrel to the company's costs, but Fisher said the project is easily paid for under current price conditions.

When crude was at $18 a barrel, extracting carbon dioxide was a break-even process, but higher prices for oil now make it a more attractive venture, Fisher said.

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Source: The Daily Oklahoman

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