CO2 Recovery

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Implications

CO2, when used as a well fracturing agent can be recovered during flow-back of initial well turn-ons instead of being emitted to the air. CO2 emmisions have not yet scratched the surface for allowables. The industry needs to be aware of the capability of recovering CO2 from fracs.

Analysis

As most of us in the industry are aware, CO2 is used in the process of fracturing oil and gas producing zones in a well. As tighter and tighter requirements for emissions have surfaced that has been plenty of thought gone into the CO2 recovery process so that very little of the gas is emitted into the atmosphere as newly drilled wells are brought on for initial delivery.
We have been capable of processing CO2 out of the raw natural gas state stream for years in a process which uses Amine as it’s primary substance to absorb the gas from the stream.
Recently a special additive to this amine solution has been found and is being tested in a similar way to extract the CO2 from new well fractures and is able to recover it to be flared or recaptured into it’s natural state. This process is currently being tested astaddle a small heavy CO2 populated gas field. The process, using the special additive chemical, is cleaning the 20+% CO2 gas in small volume by volume increments and is burning it via a fire tube in the small recovery unit which then is not emitting it to the atmosphere. The process is very similar to that of a dehydration system that is used to extract H2O from the gas stream, but instead of using the heated Glycol solution and sending it to a contact tower to come in contact w/the gas process stream and regenerated over and over again. The CO2 extraction works in the same manner but instead uses the special treated Amine solution instead of Glycol to cause the CO2 to return to the still of the dehy and be burned up in the process.
For more information on this process please contact me through the GLG and I can be available to advise on this topic.
Analyses are solely the work of the authors and have not been edited or endorsed by GLG.

Contributed by a Member of the GLG Energy & Industrials Councils