Statoil leads the way on carbon dioxide storage

Norway's Statoil has been storing carbon dioxide from the Sleipner field in a saline aquifer since 1996 and the techniques it is helping develop will lead the world on to a low-carbon diet, say Trude Sundset, Rosetta Steeneveldt, Tore Andreas Torp and Bjørn Berger

HERE IS A growing recognition that the capture and safe storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) in geological formations can significantly reduce emissions from fossil-fuel combustion. Geological formations that can be used as storage facilities include depleted oil and gas reservoirs, deeply buried saline aquifers and non-mineable coal seams. Depleted oil and gas reservoirs have the advantages of being proved traps, having well-known reservoir geology and, in some cases, of having infrastructures that can readily be adapted for CO2 transport and injection. There are also innumerable saline aquifers around the world that could be used for long-term CO2 storage. In both cases, much of the injected ga