Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage in the Context of Petroleum Industry: A State-of-the-Art Review

The petroleum industry is one of the few industries that deal with high-pressure high-temperature conditionsinvolving complex fluid behavior, rocks and their interactions, and flow dynamics in the subsurface.Moreover, petroleum industry has the critical domain expertise to reach and manage deep reservoirs bothonshore and offshore. These capabilities and know-how put petroleum industry at the forefront to capture,utilize, and store carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the subsurface. The objective of this paperis to review the existing body of literature and outline the most prominent methods or options to managecarbon dioxide (CO2) and other gases. We present the rigorous efforts presented in the literature to implement carbon capture, utilization,and storage (CCUS) projects, in the context of technological challenges, capacities, and perspectives. Wecategorize the options into three groups:Currently available technologies Near future technology Long term technology Categories (2) and (3) are discussed in terms of cost and scale-up, where both can be an impediment forwide-scale deployment. Many such options are functions of the energy price and as well as local incentives.Therefore, while focusing on the technical aspect we also discuss some of the enabling factors for itsapplication. Some of the elements of (2) are also related to source-sink match yet direct air capture is beinghighlighted as a remedy of this issue while the costs are still an impediment for widespread use. This paper presents important conclusions from CCUS case studies across the globe within the petroleumindustry, including US, Canada, China, Brazil, Norway, and beyond. Moreover, we examine methods thatuse carbon dioxide and other gases to improve the recovery of hydrocarbons and simultaneously storeconcentrated CO2 in the subsurface. We also review some of the midstream and petrochemical efforts fortransport of CO2 and utilization, including chemical synthesis of materials. Our main conclusion in thisreview paper is that the petroleum industry has all of the tools and expertise to implement and adopt CCUSprojects and to contribute to the sustainable future from a technological perspective. We show that there are many well-established methods in the petroleum industry that can be used directlyfor CCUS purposes. The petroleum industry may be regarded as a contributor to carbon and other gasemissions, however, in this paper we present the reverse concept that the petroleum industry has all thenecessary tools and expertise to capture, utilize, and store carbon gases. The perspective presented in thispaper will help petroleum industry to recognize its own strengths with the goal to reduce emissions not onlywithin our industry but also to lead carbon emission reduction efforts from other industries.