A screening-level life cycle greenhouse gas analysis of CO2 enhanced oil recovery with CO2 sourced from the Shute Creek natural gas-processing facility

Abstract

This life cycle analysis (LCA) evaluates life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with a system that produces both natural gas and crude oil. Two systems are defined: System 1, which independently produces natural gas and oil, and System 2, which captures carbon dioxide (CO2) from the natural gas-processing plant and utilizes this captured CO2 for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). The LCA uses customized spreadsheet models with emission factors from peer-reviewed literature and publications of the National Energy Technology Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy. The modeling results show that the CO2 EOR scenario using captured CO2 produces both natural gas and oil with lower life cycle GHG emissions than alternative systems producing natural gas and oil independently. Sensitivity analyses show that the model results are most sensitive to the fraction of CO2 captured (or equivalently, the fraction of CO2 vented) at the natural gas-processing facility and the incremental oil recovery factor and net CO2 utilization factor of the EOR operations. The input variable driving the relative difference in life cycle GHG emissions between these two systems is the fraction of CO2 captured at the natural gas-processing facility (i.e., the capture rate). The results of this study highlight the necessity of linking processes in the life cycle modeling, as a change to one process can affect other processes within the coupled energy system comprised of natural gas and oil. In addition, this analysis shows, as prior work has also suggested, that CO2 EOR using captured anthropogenic CO2 provides a viable means for offsetting carbon emissions from oil production and combustion via the associated storage of CO2 that occurs incidentally during this tertiary method of oil recovery.