The energy transition is calling for a marked change, leading to an important effort from the energy community to rapidly increase the number of Carbon Capture and Storage projects under execution. Tenaris Energy Transition OCTG Project Director Paolo Novelli said “CCS is a proven technology necessary to achieve carbon neutrality in Europe in a cost-efficient manner and to enable negative emissions. All credible modelling scenarios show that CCS will be essential to meeting the targets set by the Paris Agreement.”With that in mind, many projects are currently progressing, and the industry is active in finding solutions from existing oil and gas experience or with dedicated testing simulating the most critical CO2 injection conditions. In this context, the North Sea, historically a key area in developing knowledge and trialing new technologies, is one of the most advanced and dynamic areas. Tenaris is putting its experience at the service of these developments, actively collaborating with the most important public and private entities and operators.”There are a number of reasons for this. First of all, activity in this area is clearly stimulated by the environmental commitment of North Sea country governments (Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, UK). In addition to this, North Sea oil and gas exploration and production has been on the frontier of technological development since the 1960s, which over decades has resulted in a wealth of expertise in the region, which can be repurposed to CCS. Many of the region’s universities and research institutes hosting excellent schools for petroleum engineers are now focusing on the task of CCS. Also, in the North Sea, there is a significant and proven storage capacity for CO2, which is well mapped and understood by the operators through copious amounts of data from exploration and development projects.In many of the large-emitting areas, governments are pushing to capture CO2. Many operators are suggesting the CO2 be stored in depleted offshore oil and gas fields that have come to the end of their life as a producing hydrocarbon field. Other operators are selecting new saline-aquifers without any hydrocarbon extraction activity. In some cases, the infrastructure is already in place, including some existing pipelines for transportation while others have to be constructed. A general trend for the North Sea region’s CCS projects is for CO2 capture to be organized in hubs, where CO2 is captured from different industrial sources and collectively injected in a single offshore injection site operated by a leading operator in the consortium. In these hubs, all the technological challenges related to the transportation and storage of CO2 coming from different sources are collectively analyzed and studied to find the appropriate solutions.Based on discussions about OCTG with many CCS project operators in the region, the technical challenges faced can be broadly split into two main categories: cold-temperature and effect of the CCS injection gases on the materials (corrosion).Cold temperature: during the injection and some well operations, it is possible for the temperature of the CO2 (and the tubulars) to drop well below freezing (-78.5oC) due to the Joule-Thompson effect. OCTG connections and materials require validation in these extreme temperatures, which are outside of the scope of traditional oil and gas applications.Corrosion: North Sea CCS hubs collect CO2 from numerous sources (combustion and other) which result in the injectable CO2 being contaminated with O2, NOx, SOx, H2S and H2 (among other impurities). Versus existing oil and gas experience, materials require further validation in terms of understanding corrosion and cracking resistance of materials in these challenging environments.Tenaris has already conducted full-scale testing of a 3 ½” 9.2# TN 95Cr13S TenarisHydril Blue Dopeless® 3.0 premium connection at -34oC, whose results have been presented at OMC in Ravenna and SPE CCUS Conference 2022 in Aberdeen, demonstrating that the Blue® premium connection maintains its gas sealability performances even under such low temperatures.
The energy transition is calling for a marked change, leading to an important effort from the energy community to rapidly increase the number of Carbon Capture and Storage projects under execution. Tenaris Energy Transition OCTG Project Director Paolo Novelli said “CCS is a proven technology necessary to achieve carbon neutrality in Europe in a cost-efficient manner and to enable negative emissions. All credible modelling scenarios show that CCS will be essential to meeting the targets set by the Paris Agreement.”With that in mind, many projects are currently progressing, and the industry is active in finding solutions from existing oil and gas experience or with dedicated testing simulating the most critical CO2 injection conditions. In this context, the North Sea, historically a key area in developing knowledge and trialing new technologies, is one of the most advanced and dynamic areas. Tenaris is putting its experience at the service of these developments, actively collaborating with the most important public and private entities and operators.”There are a number of reasons for this. First of all, activity in this area is clearly stimulated by the environmental commitment of North Sea country governments (Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, UK). In addition to this, North Sea oil and gas exploration and production has been on the frontier of technological development since the 1960s, which over decades has resulted in a wealth of expertise in the region, which can be repurposed to CCS. Many of the region’s universities and research institutes hosting excellent schools for petroleum engineers are now focusing on the task of CCS. Also, in the North Sea, there is a significant and proven storage capacity for CO2, which is well mapped and understood by the operators through copious amounts of data from exploration and development projects.In many of the large-emitting areas, governments are pushing to capture CO2. Many operators are suggesting the CO2 be stored in depleted offshore oil and gas fields that have come to the end of their life as a producing hydrocarbon field. Other operators are selecting new saline-aquifers without any hydrocarbon extraction activity. In some cases, the infrastructure is already in place, including some existing pipelines for transportation while others have to be constructed. A general trend for the North Sea region’s CCS projects is for CO2 capture to be organized in hubs, where CO2 is captured from different industrial sources and collectively injected in a single offshore injection site operated by a leading operator in the consortium. In these hubs, all the technological challenges related to the transportation and storage of CO2 coming from different sources are collectively analyzed and studied to find the appropriate solutions.Based on discussions about OCTG with many CCS project operators in the region, the technical challenges faced can be broadly split into two main categories: cold-temperature and effect of the CCS injection gases on the materials (corrosion).Cold temperature: during the injection and some well operations, it is possible for the temperature of the CO2 (and the tubulars) to drop well below freezing (-78.5oC) due to the Joule-Thompson effect. OCTG connections and materials require validation in these extreme temperatures, which are outside of the scope of traditional oil and gas applications.Corrosion: North Sea CCS hubs collect CO2 from numerous sources (combustion and other) which result in the injectable CO2 being contaminated with O2, NOx, SOx, H2S and H2 (among other impurities). Versus existing oil and gas experience, materials require further validation in terms of understanding corrosion and cracking resistance of materials in these challenging environments.Tenaris has already conducted full-scale testing of a 3 ½” 9.2# TN 95Cr13S TenarisHydril Blue Dopeless® 3.0 premium connection at -34oC, whose results have been presented at OMC in Ravenna and SPE CCUS Conference 2022 in Aberdeen, demonstrating that the Blue® premium connection maintains its gas sealability performances even under such low temperatures.
