Expulsive force in the development of CO2 sequestration: application of SC-CO2 jet in oil and gas extraction

Abstract

With the rapid development of global economy, an increasing amount of attention has been paid to the emission of greenhouse gases, especially CO2. In recent years, dominated by the governments around the world, several significant projects of CO2 sequestration have been conducted. However, due to the huge investment and poor economic effects, the sustainability of those projects is not satisfactory. Supercritical CO2 (SC-CO2) has prominent advantages in well drilling, fracturing, displacement, storage, plug and scale removal within tubing and casing, which could bring considerable economic benefits along with CO2 sequestration. In this paper, based on physicochemical properties of SC-CO2 fluid, a detailed analysis of technical advantages of SC-CO2 applied in oil and gas development is illustrated. Furthermore, the implementation processes of SC-CO2 are also proposed. For the first time, a recycling process is presented in which oil and gas are extracted and the CO2 generated could be restored underground, thus an integrated technology system is formed. Considering the recent interests in the development of enhancing hydrocarbon recoveries and CO2 sequestration, this approach provides a promising technique that can achieve these two goals simultaneously.