BP and Statoil, the largest integrated oil companies in Britain and Norway, are to pool their technical resources to deal with the challenges of climate change.
BP and Statoil will evaluate and implement ways of reducing their energy consumption and investigate new ways of safely disposing of carbon dioxide.
One of the major activities for BP and Statoil co-operation will be in developing technology to separate carbon dioxide from gas turbine exhausts and disposing of it in an environmentally-acceptable and economic manner.
BP has already set up its own internal carbon dioxide management project to examine and develop a range of technical options to help reduce CO2 emissions. As an example, one of those options is to evaluate the potential of using carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery from the Schrader Bluff reservoir on the North Slope of Alaska. The study is looking at the process which would be required, based upon the technical, economic and environmental criteria. If the decision is taken to proceed, then it could be operational early in the next century.
Statoil, which began its carbon dioxide programme last year, is evaluating the technology needed to extract carbon dioxide at Karsto, Norway, and to transport it 240 kilometres by pipeline to the Sleipner area of the North Sea, then injected into a deep saline formation where it would remain. This could be operational as early as 2005.