KUALA LUMPUR: Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) will set aside up to US$1 billion (RM3.49 billion) for the development of engineering and technology solutions to recover natural gas from high carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration gas fields.
Petronas Carigali Sdn Bhd technology division and technical global head Dr Nasir Darman said the investment is for the first phase of the project which will run until 2018.
“Phase One will involve the development of technology, which will be carried out at Petronas K5 gas field offshore Sarawak,” he said at a media briefing during the three-day International Petroleum Technology Conference (IPTC), here, yesterday.
“We will run tests at the field and if it is successful, we will start production in 2018 and apply the technology to other high CO2 concentration fields,” he added.
Nasir said the project will delve into both surface and subsurface designs and is comprehensive across the value chain for carbon separation, transportation, capture and storage.
The project will be undertaken by Petronas’ upstream arm Petronas Carigali and four local and international partners namely Technip Consultant (M) Sdn Bhd, UOP Malaysia Sdn Bhd, General Asia Sdn Bhd and Twister BV.
“The technologies will be redesigned and applied at Petronas’ first offshore cryogenic distillation facility that will be located at the K5 field,” said Nasir.
K5 is a greenfield situated 250km offshore Bintulu with CO2 concentration at about 70 per cent. It is one of Petronas’ four high CO2 concentration fields, including Tangga Barat, Muda and Cakerawala.
With 80 metre water depth, K5 has a gas reserve of 21 trillion square cubic feet (tscf), with recoverable gas of 4tscf. Malaysia has a combined gas reserve of 41tscf with 14.35tscf recoverable compared to the world’s total of 2600tscf and 910tscf respectively.
The offshore cryogenic distillation facility aims to reduce the CO2 concentration to 6.5 per cent which makes it suitable for liquified natural gas (LNG) processing.
The CO2 separated in the facility will be injected into the acquifer located 2.2km below the seabed for storage.
“This will position Petronas as a forerunner in offshore carbon capture and storage and provide a stepping stone for a greener oil and gas industry as no contaminants are emitted into the atmosphere with zero-venting and flaring,” said Nasir.