Our Carbon Storage and Research Centre near Estevan, SK, hosts Aquistore — an independent research and monitoring project. The project works to show that storing carbon dioxide (CO2) deep underground is a safe way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Storage of the CO2 takes place 3.4 kilometres deep in a layer of brine-filled sandstone called the Deadwood Formation. Currently the Petroleum Technology Research Centre (PTRC) runs Aquistore and will manage the CO2 monitoring and storage.
Weyburn-Midale C02 Storage and Monitoring Project
This research program that ran from 2000 – 2012 aimed to measure and monitor CO2 being injected into two empty oil reservoirs in southeastern Saskatchewan.
Cenovus Energy began putting CO2 into the Weyburn Reservoir in 2000 to improve oil production. Apache Canada began putting C02 into the Midale Reservoir in 2005.
Both companies make sure that the CO2 remains in place. Any recycled C02 that come up with the oil is re-injected underground. In addition, 8000 tonnes of new CO2 arrives daily from the Dakota Gasification Company’s coal gasification plant in North Dakota.
Since 2000, some 22 million tonnes of CO2 have been successfully stored underground in these two reservoirs. The research program has shown that the CO2 remains safe underground, and in 2012 provided a best practices manual to help other companies thinking of storing CO2 in similar formations.
We keep exact figures private to the paid sponsors of the Weyburn-Midale Project. However, two books are available for scientists and the public. The first highlights the first four years of research (2000-2004) and the second is titled “Best Practices for Validating CO2 Geological Storage: Observations and Guidance from the IEAGHG Weyburn-Midale CO2 Monitoring and Storage Project”.
