Sequestration success

The US Department of Energy funded “Weyburn Project” has successfully sequestered five million tons of CO2 into the Weyburn Oilfield in Saskatchewan, Canada, while doubling the field’s oil recovery rate.

If the methodology used in the Weyburn Project was successfully applied on a worldwide scale, one-third to one-half of CO2 emissions could be eliminated in the next 100 years and billions of barrels of oil could be recovered.

“The success of the Weyburn Project could have incredible implications for reducing CO2 emissions and increasing America’s oil production. Just by applying this technique to the oil fields of Western Canada we would see billions of additional barrels of oil and a reduction in CO2 emissions equivalent to pulling more than 200 million cars off the road for a year,” said US Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman.

In the first phase of the research project, co-funded by the Department of Energy, carbon dioxide was injected into the Weyburn Oilfield in Saskatchewan, Canada. The CO2 increased the underground pressure of the field to bring more oil to the surface. The project increased the field's oil production by an additional 10,000 barrels per day and demonstrated the technical and economic feasibility of permanent carbon sequestration, the capture and permanent storage of carbon dioxide in geologic formations.