Potential of Denver Basin oil fields to store CO2 and produce Bio-CO2-EOR oil

Abstract

The capacity of the Denver Basin to store CO2 in hydrocarbon reservoirs was analyzed using two techniques. The first approach employed by the Southwest Carbon Partnership assumes CO2 is injected into depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs but no fluids are withdrawn. The second method analyzes the storage capacity of the Denver Basin assuming CO2 is injected until the pressure in each oil reservoir reaches the hydrostatic gradient, and CO2 then continues to be injected into the oil reservoirs in order to recover additional oil, until the incremental oil recovery would no longer be commercially viable. The amount of CO2 sequestered in the 30 oil fields studied was found to be 160 Mt with the first method but only 50 to 70 Mt using the second method. If the CO2 source is fermentation emissions available from corn ethanol plants in Nebraska, and the produced bio-CO2-EOR oil is refined into gasoline that is consumed in Colorado, then the CO2 sequestration project described in this paper could reduce the GHG emissions from the transportation sector in Colorado by 10% during peak oil production from the project.