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.

Key words： CO₂ sequestration; SC-CO₂ jet; well drilling; fracturing; oil and gas

Acknowledgements

This research is supported financially by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51521063, and U1562212); The Key Project of Chinese National Programs for Fundamental Research and Development (973 program) (No. 2014CB239203); The Science Foundation of China University of Petroleum, Beijing (No. 2462015BJB01).

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