The Goldeneye reservoir in the North Sea has been independently verified as suitable for the safe storage of carbon dioxide from an Aberdeenshire power station.
A team of experts from the British Geological Survey (BGS) and Heriot-Watt University recently completed an independent external review of the storage plan for the proposed Peterhead Carbon Capture and Storage project, one of the two preferred bidders in the UK Government’s Carbon Capture and Storage Commercialisation Programme.
The project, which is led by Shell with strategic support from SSE, proposes to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) from an existing gas-fired power-station at Peterhead in Aberdeenshire and to store this 100 km (62 miles) offshore in geological strata at a depth of around 2600 meters beneath the outer Moray Firth. The plan is to store ten to fifteen million tons of CO2 over a ten- to fifteen-year period commencing around 2020, but the site is being qualified for twenty million tons of storage to allow for potential extension of the injection period. Storage will utilize the depleted Goldeneye gas condensate field with the Captain Sandstone reservoir as the primary storage container.
The review took place over a period of several months in the first part of 2014, and followed an iterative process of document review, response and discussion between the review team and geoscientists and engineers from Shell.
Dr Andy Chadwick, BGS, who led the review, said: “It is clear that the technical studies carried out by Shell are founded on a comprehensive suite of modern high-quality datasets and are very robust. We conclude therefore that the Goldeneye storage site is characterized and understood to a high level of detail and is suitable for the purpose of storing up to 20 million tons of CO2 injected according to the specified plan, with the likelihood of significant additional capacity. The British Geological Survey has prepared a signed statement to this effect.”
The full report, plus a short summary of its main findings, is available to view and download from the British Geological Survey website: main findings (www.bgs.ac.uk/downloads/start.cfm?id=3035) and summary (www.bgs.ac.uk/downloads/start.cfm?id=3034).
