 The Sleipner field is in the North Sea, about 250 km (155 mi) west of Stavanger, Norway. It is operated by Statoil, Norway’s largest oil company. The Sleipner field produces natural gas and condensate (light oil) from the Heimdal sandstones, which are about 2,500 m (8,200 ft) below sea level.
The natural gas produced at Sleipner contains unusually high levels (about 9%) of carbon dioxide (CO2), but the customers buying the gas from Statoil need less than 2.5%. A special platform, Sleipner-T, has been built to support a 20-m-high (65-ft), 8,000-ton treatment plant that separates CO2 from the natural gas. The Sleipner-T plant produces about 1 million tons of CO2 per year.
To encourage companies to reduce their carbon emissions, the Norwegian government imposes a carbon tax equivalent to about $50 per ton of CO2 released into the atmosphere. To avoid paying this tax, and as a test of alternative technology, all of the CO2 extracted since 1996, when gas production started at Sleipner, has been pumped back deep underground.
Labels: carbon sequestration |
