Singapore: DNV Accelerates its CCS Activities in Asia Pacific

DNV together with the industry, have recently developed recommended guidelines and best practices for CO2 geological storage selection and risk assessment. DNV is in close dialogue with Energy Ministries and leading Energy Companies throughout Asia.

Areas addressed include feasibility studies for CO2 capture from onshore power plants, offshore and onshore gas production from gas streams containing high CO2 and subsequent storage in depleted gas fields. Use of CCS for enhanced oil recovery is also high on the agenda.

DNV has over the past few years developed sets of recommended guidelines and best practices for carbon capture and storage projects (CCS) that cover critical issues such as risk management, site selection, transportation in pipelines, and well integrity assessment. Among the documents is also the CO2 Well Integrity guideline which was published in June 2011. As a result of active promotion of these guidelines in Asia from DNV’s Clean Technology Centre (CTC) in Singapore, DNV is now involved in several CCS feasibility studies throughout the region. Business development efforts in CCS have taken DNV to an extensive range of workshops and presentations at key CCS conferences in Asia, as well as working meetings with Energy Ministries in the region.

“One of the most difficult hurdles of CCS is locating geological sites which are safe for long term CO2 storage with required CO2 storage capacity and injectivity” says Chief Technology Officer Dr Jens Petter Tronskar of DNV’s Clean Technology Centre in Singapore. “The task to identify such sites takes a long time, and often may involve a nationwide search. DNV together with a large number of industry partners have developed guidelines for the selection and risk assessments of sites for geological storage of CO2. The guidelines include CO2QUALSTORE and CO2WELLS which facilitate risk management, site selection and well integrity assessment. Notably, the CO2QUALSTORE guideline was recently referenced in the EU CCS directive.

The establishment of CCS projects is a vital component in the mixture of actions required towards global CO¬2 emissions reduction. The International Energy Agency (IEA) Technology Road Map in 2009 recommended more than 100 CCS projects, half of them in emerging economies, to be operational by 2020. As CCS projects often take more than 5 to 10 years to develop it is opportune for many countries in Asia Pacific to initiate CCS efforts and capability building as soon as possible.

“CCS in Asia is in its early stage and DNV is very well positioned to help countries, power utilities and National Oil Companies to kick of the process and be a strong partner throughout the life cycle of the projects” says Bjorn Tore Markussen, Managing Director of DNV’s Clean Technology Centre in Singapore. “We will continue to build our expertise supporting CCS projects in Asia to better serve the emerging demand throughout the region.”