Carbon Capture and Storage Demonstration by Total

Total on January 11 inaugurated Europe’s first end-to-end carbon capture, transportation and storage demonstration facility in Lacq, southwestern France, at a ceremony attended by Valérie Létard, France’s Secretary of State for Green Technology and Climate Negotiations.

The industrial demonstration has three key objectives:

1. To improve mastery of the oxyfuel combustion process, particularly with a view to applications in the production of extra-heavy oils.
2. To halve the cost of carbon capture compared to existing processes.
3. To develop monitoring methods and instruments to demonstrate on a larger scale the reliability and sustainability of long-term CO2 storage technology.

The project by Total involves converting one of the steam boilers of the Lacq field’s steam generating plant to an oxyfuel combustion unit. It then intends to capture and compress its CO2 emissions, transporting the gas via a 27 Km gas pipeline, for injection into the nearly-depleted Rousse natural gas reservoir in the Lacq area, at a depth of 4,500 meters.

The pilot plant, which will produce some 40 tonnes of steam per hour for use by the industries of the Lacq complex, will emit up to 120,000 tonnes of CO2 over a two-year period. The Rousse well is subject to close monitoring, with detectors located throughout the surface and subsoil regions to measure the injection flow, pressure, temperature and concentration of the CO2.

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