Is the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line and EOR project safe?
Yes. Enhanced Oil Recovery – the process of extracting oil from depleted reserves using captured CO2 – has been used throughout North America for over 30 years. The first CO2 flood took place in 1972 in Scurry County, Texas. Today, there are an estimated 100 registered CO2 floods worldwide producing approximately 250,000 barrels per day (2006) of oil. The CO2 is stored approximately 1 kilometer below the earths surface, where reservoirs previously held oil and gas for millions of years. Storing CO2 in empty reservoirs has been proven to be safe. The Weyburn-Midale CO2 Project in Saskatchewan has safely injected over 16 million tonnes of CO2 to date. The US EOR industry has injected over 600 million tonnes of CO2.
