Qatar has contributed in a 10-year, $70m research program to provide science and engineering with the state-of–the-art techniques to cut CO2 emissions.
The Qatar Carbonates and Carbon Storage Center (QCCSRC) project, a collaboration between Qatar Petroleum (QP), Shell and Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP), aims to provide methodologies and stimulate CO2 storage in Carbon reservoirs instead of emitting them in the air in Qatar.
“The $70m commitment by partners QP, QFSTP, Shell and Imperial College shows Qatar is serious about developing these technologies and deploying them,” Paul Fennel, the director of Imperial College Center of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) in London said.
In an event held on the sidelines of the 18th meeting of the conference of the parties (COP 18) on the Carbon Capture Storage (CCS) technology from the Gulf Council Countries (GCC) perspective, Fennel, said: “Our objectives is to provide the underpinning science and engineering for carbon storage in reservoirs in Qatar.”
He explained that this project will include educating Qatari PhD students to become technology leaders of the future of Qatar, and to transfer equipment technologies, methodologies and expertise to Qatar to create world leading facilities in CCS and Hydrocarbon recovery from carbonate reservoirs.
“Here in Qatar reservoirs are of different types and we need QP reservoir experience and expertise along with imperial college center of CCS to develop the carbon storage options in Qatar,” Fennell explained.
QCCRC has been growing since 2008 having an academic staff of three lecturers specifically funded by QCCSRC, 40 PhD students and five technical staff.
“The official opening of the QCCSR is the second most important event in London in 2012,” he said. During the event Fennell spoke of other pluses of the injecting Carbon emissions underground. “CCS could be good in other ways apart from capturing CO2, if we pass the CCS costs to the consumer and rise power costs, we could lower consumption and preserving valuable natural resources,” he said.
“So you reduce CO2 emissions from power sector and industrial processes, and reduce CO2 emissions from power consumption and reducing depletion of nonrenewable resources,” he elaborated.
“Hopefully in the future with the appropriate mechanisms for CO2 reductions around the world, Qatar will be moving forward to full scale deployment some of these technologies,” he said. He said QCCRC is having a plan to support pilot demonstration of injecting CO2 underground in Qatar.
“However the pilot projects aren’t alone enough to reach CO2 cutting targets,” he made clear. These technologies have to be deployed in large scale in many different industries and locations,” Fennell concluded.
QNA
2 December
