Reducing cost of CCUS associated with natural gas production by improving monitoring technologies

This paper examines how we can reduce the cost of carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS). The CO2CRC research and demonstration projects during the last 15 years and the upcoming Otway Stage 3 Project aim to reduce the cost of CCUS. The CO2CRC Otway Stage 3 Project will develop subsurface monitoring technologies which can significantly reduce the cost of the surveillance. The CCUS associated with natural gas processing carries the lowest cost compared to other industries because production of concentrated CO2 streams is already part of the gas production process. Transport and storage remain the highest cost components of CCUS for natural gas production. Ranges of storage and transportation costs based on different publicly available data are ~US$2–40/tCO2 and ~US$2–10/tCO2 respectively. Further, the US Department of Energy cost model identifies 40–60% of storage cost as relating to recurring monitoring. This is highly dependent on project specifications, regulatory requirements and geographical considerations. The application of Otway Stage 3 subsurface technologies show preliminary long-term monitoring cost savings estimates for a large Australian project of up to 75% compared to conventional surface seismic-based methodologies. Depending on total injection mass, this would equate to an estimated cost saving of up to AU$12/tonne of CO2 injected for such a project. Reduced monitoring costs could be applied to all CCUS projects but would be of most interest to gas projects because storage is likely to be the biggest contributor to overall CCUS cost.