An integrated technical-economic model for evaluating CO2 enhanced oil recovery development

Abstract Carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery (EOR) has been proved to effectively reduce CO 2 emissions by storing industrial CO 2 underground while increasing oil production. An integrated assessment model was developed to evaluate the technical and economic performance of CO 2 -EOR based on data from more than 40 historical field projects. Unlike previous models, the model comprehensively assesses economic potential and greenhouse gases (GHG) emission of CO 2 -EOR together and is based on a large amount of field data. The technical model estimates incremental oil production based on CO 2 injection. The model also estimates the net CO 2 emissions by considering the emissions from oil production and CO 2 utilization. The economic model simulated the net present value (NPV) of six scenarios under different design requirements. The breakeven oil price for small scale CO 2 pipeline project was $46.4/barrel. The porosity, net pay, CO 2 injection, depth, oil formation factor, and oil saturation are the critical parameters affecting the economic performance based on the sensitivity analysis. The breakeven price of carbon tax scenario was $64.10/barrel, of which CO 2 injection and carbon tax contributed 52% of the NPV variations. The study provides operators, investors, and even policymakers the sufficient and important information to fully understand CO 2 -EOR developments with various external and internal parameters before making the right decisions.