Algeria: Gas Field to Set Environmental Example with CCS

A JV project in Algeria seeks to set an environmental standard by burying CO2 that is derived from a gas field in the Sahara Desert.

The JV project, located in the gas fields at In Salah, has invested $100 million into the carbon capture and storage (CCS) of the greenhouse gases emitted by the natural gas fields.

"A hundred million dollars is a large sum for anybody, but we had to start somewhere," said Michael Mossman of the British oil firm BP PLC, who heads the venture with Norway‘s Statoil and Algeria‘s national oil company Sonatrach.

Algeria has asked other foreign drilling companies that are conducting business within the country to include such CCS techniques into their investment projects.

The joint venture says the gas field buries 800,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year, or the equivalent emissions of 200,000 cars driving 30,000 km. Carbon dioxide represents 7% of the 9 billion cubic meters of gas extracted at In Salah each year.

Some scientists and conservation groups worry that underground carbon storage isn’t safe because the pollutant could leak back into the atmosphere. In Salah’s joint venture says it pumps the carbon back directly into the natural gas and water reservoir.

Gas sequestration on drilling fields isn’t currently taken into account by the Kyoto Protocol, which seeks to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases and arbitrates on how companies can obtain "carbon credits" for limiting pollution. But this could change as world leaders and the United Nations prepare to negotiate a new treaty to succeed the Kyoto pact, which expires in 2012.

Problems that hinder the inclusion of CCS in the CDM are mainly technical. How to account for the emission reductions, how to estimate risks of future leakage, and how to establish the project boundary are a few examples of reasons behind its inability to make progress.

The Energy Research Center of the Netherlands has issued a paper that detailed progress on CCS in the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). While CCS is still debated, substantial results on the process in the CDM has been outlined revealing that demonstration projects throughout the continent could help build more confidence in the technology, as well as bringing more investment to Africa.

The UN environmental body says nations are in heated discussions over whether techniques such as the one used at In Salah should be one of the means to gain carbon credits.

Algerian Energy Minister Chakib Khelil said In Salah was Algeria‘s contribution to Kyoto protocol efforts. "I hope it will make us profit from carbon credits one of these days," he said.