Total is committed to reducing the impact of its activities on the environment, especially its greenhouse gas emissions. The group's priorities are to improve the energy efficiency of its industrial facilities, to reduce the flaring of associated gas, to invest in the development of complementary energy sources (biomass, solar, clean coal) and to participate in many operational and R&D programs on CO2 capture, transport and geological storage. It has been involved in CO2 injection and geological storage for over 15 years, in Canada (Weyburn oil field) for EOR and Norway (Sleipner, Snohvit) for aquifer storage. In 20 06, the company decided to invest 60 million euros to experiment CO2 capture, transportation and injection in a deplet ed gas reservoir. The pilot in the Lacq basin, SW France, 800 km from Paris, has been on stream since January 2010.
The experimental plant is unique in several respects; by its size (unprecedented worldwide), capturing carbon through a 30-MWth oxy-combustion gas boiler, by the choice of a depleted deep gas reservoir (unprecedented in Europe) located onshore 5 kilometers south of the agglomeration of Pau (around 140,000 inhabitants) and by its scope, operating a fully integrated industrial chain (comprising extraction, treatment, combustion of natural gas, High-pressure steam production, CO2 capture, transport and injection) on the SEVESO-classified Lacq industrial complex.
The pilot installations were designed by the Total E&P Research and Development team and are operated by Total Exploration Production France. The project reflects Total's commitment to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.
A dedicated plan was devised with the French authorities to monitor the integrity of the injection site and confirm that the CO2 remains trapped in its host reservoir. Its main objectives are to check that no CO2 is leaking upward out of the reservoir though either the injection well or the cap rock, so as to avoid any impact on the groundwater and surface water resources, the biosphere (Fauna and Flora) or human health.
This paper details the main technical features of the pilot and the monitoring program spanning subsurface and surface aspects, together with the operational feedback after more than two and half years of operation.
Based on the pilot's performance to date, Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) appears to hold promise for use on an industrial scale. This industrial operation will capture and trap around 90,000 tonnes of Carbon dioxide over a 3 and half year period. This quantity is equivalent to the exhaust emissions of 30,000 cars over a 2-year period.
