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

Carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery (EOR) has been proved to effectively reduce CO₂ emissions by storing industrial CO₂ underground while increasing oil production. An integrated assessment model was developed to evaluate the technical and economic performance of CO₂-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 CO₂-EOR together and is based on a large amount of field data. The technical model estimates incremental oil production based on CO₂ injection. The model also estimates the net CO₂ emissions by considering the emissions from oil production and CO₂ utilization. The economic model simulated the net present value (NPV) of six scenarios under different design requirements. The breakeven oil price for small scale CO₂ pipeline project was $46.4/barrel. The porosity, net pay, CO₂ 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 CO₂ 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 CO₂-EOR developments with various external and internal parameters before making the right decisions.