ABOUT REX-CO₂

Objectives

REX-CO₂ will increase the technical feasibility and economic competitiveness of high-potential depleted hydrocarbon fields earmarked for CO₂ storage. The specific objectives are:

• Develop a publicly available well re-use screening tool which helps stakeholders to make informed decisions on the CCS re-use potential of certain wells or fields
• Demonstrate the application of the developed tool to perform dedicated re-use assessment, including technical, ecological and economic aspects with candidate wells/fields from multiple international sites
• Perform laboratory testing on relevant re-use risk scenarios, provide recommendations for (smart) material selection in re-used wells; feed coupled thermo-hydraulic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) models and improve failure predictions
• Provide guidance for the development of re-use permit applications
• Gain an improved understanding on public acceptance and provide guidance on the socio-economic aspects of re-using oil and gas infrastructures

Outcomes

The results of REX-CO₂ are expected to facilitate large-scale CCUS implementation by providing a tool to evaluate and rank the CO₂ re-use potential of hydrocarbon fields. The developed technology is not limited to a particular sector of CO₂ storage but will accelerate all types of CCS. Key results will include:

• Synthesised findings from developing a public re-use well screening tool for re-using existing hydrocarbon fields
• Key findings in laboratory experiments, including well cement state of stress, material self-healing potential and implications for integrity of re-used wells
• Field scale numerical simulation results for different re-use field scenarios
• Field case re-use studies for selected wells and depleted fields in all six partner countries
• Assessment of public acceptance and recommendations for future projects involving well re-use for CO₂ injection/storage
• Development of technical and socioeconomic best practice recommendations for re-using existing wells for CO₂ storage

Work Packages

The project REX-CO₂ is funded through the ACT programme (Accelerating CCS Technologies, Horizon2020 Project No. 294766). Financial contributions made from ADEME (FR); Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy (NL); Gassnova and RCN (NO); UEFISCDI (RO); BEIS, NERC, and EPSRC (UK); and US-DOE (USA) are gratefully acknowledged. For more information on ACT, visit their website.

Consortium