Use of exploration methods to repurpose and extend the life of a super basin as a carbon storage hub for the energy transition

Abstract

The Anglo-Polish Super Basin forms an important petroleum province that stretches across northwestern Europe. It contains many giant gas fields, primarily located beneath a thick upper Permian (Zechstein Group) evaporite canopy and a smaller amount of oil and gas in Mesozoic reservoirs in the suprasalt section. Although exploration activity continues in the super basin, discoveries have diminished in size; many fields have been decommissioned; and it is beginning a transformation from an area with a rich petroleum heritage to a new, low-carbon energy hub. Given its favorable geology, infrastructure, and the location of major industrial emitters in adjacent land areas, offshore parts of the super basin are being evaluated and repurposed for renewable technologies like wind and geothermal energy, and as possible sites for subsurface carbon dioxide, hydrogen, compressed air, and methane gas storage.The use of a rich, dense, and high-fidelity seismic, well log, core, and pressure data sets acquired during petroleum exploration and production activities provide the basis for a play-based exploration assessment of the super basin's carbon storage potential. The results of our analysis of the super basin's offshore waters of the United Kingdom sector suggest that storage in traps containing Carboniferous and Permian (presalt) and Triassic (postsalt) clastic reservoirs have the potential to extend the life of the mature super basin during the energy transition. The detailed evaluation of the Rotliegend Group, from which most of the gas in the basin has been derived, enables a prospective subsalt carbon storage reservoir play fairway to be defined, common risks to be identified, and composite maps to be produced that show where the best storage

Aeolian-Lacustrine Margins: Implications for Carbon Capture and Storage within the Rotliegend Group, Southern North Sea

“…The first CCS license round began in June 2022 with 20 licenses offered for award by the NSTA in May 2023 with two awarded track 2 status at the time of writingthe Viking and Acorn CCS projects (Department for Energy Security & Net Zero 2023). The North Sea is in a unique position to be at the forefront of CCS due to the wealth of legacy open access data and subsurface knowledge of the area, combined with some of the world's best existing offshore infrastructure which could be into storage centres reducing the need for costly decommissioning (Underhill et al 2023).…”

Storage Sites for Carbon Dioxide in the North Sea and Their Particular Characteristics

“…Additionally, as part of Denmark's global climate action strategy, there are plans to store carbon dioxide in Chalk reservoirs of depleted oil and gas fields in the Danish North Sea [13]. Several stratigraphic units have been investigated for their contribution to the energy transition in the southern North Sea, including the Triassic Bunter Sandstone Formation and the Lower Permian Leman Sandstone Formation [14][15][16].…”