STATOIL was founded in 1972. Since 2001 it is listed on the New York and Oslo stock exchanges. 75% of the shares are owned by the Norwegian state. Head office is in Stavanger, Norway. The company’s objective is to carry out exploration, production, transport, refining and marketing of petroleum and petroleum derived products. Also renewables as bio-fuel and wind power are marketed. Large scale offshore floating wind is under demonstration. Turnover for the Group in 2008 totalled 76.7 G€ (NOK 652 billion). Number of employees at mid 2009 was 30 000. Statoil is the leading player on the Norwegian continental shelf. It has had a gradual expansion of its international upstream operations in recent years, and is presently active in 23 countries. The company is the world’s largest net seller of crude oil, and is one of the leading suppliers of natural gas in Europe. Statoil Petroleum AS is since 2008 a daughter company 100% owned by Statoil ASA.
STATOIL RESEARCH CENTRE has the primary role of research and development in Statoil with. CO2 CAPTURE AND STORAGE qualifications have been developed since the preparations and execution of CO2 capture and storage (CCS) at Sleipner started in 1996. Since then 1 Mt CO2 per year has been injected into the Utsira formation 1000 meter below the bottom of the North Sea. Statoil initiated the first European R&D project SACS – Saline Aquifer CO2 Storage, studying and documenting the behaviour of the CO2 in the deep. Since then Statoil has been in the lead for a number of European and Norwegian R&D projects studying the CCS such as CO2STORE, CASTOR, ENCAP, CO2NET EAST, COACH and ULCOS; ongoing are CO2SINK, CO2ReMoVe, CESAR, CAESAR, and ECCO. The offshore field SNOHVIT started injecting 0.7 Mt CO2 per year as of April 2008 through a 153 km subsea pipeline and into a deep salt water containing formation.
Statoil is also co-operator of In Salah gas field in Algeria, which since 2004 have been injecting around 1 Mt CO2 annually. In 2006 Statoil initiated and is now constructing the European Test Centre Mongstad (ETCM) capturing 100 kt CO2 annually by two capture technologies. Negotiations are ongoing to build a full CCS at a new gas fired CHP power plant at Statoil’s refinery at Mongstad, Norway.
Expertise and capacity
STATOIL has nearly 40 years experience in exploration of oil and gas, a similar work process as site characterisation, involving the same professional skills. Since year 2000 several site characterisations aiming at CO2 storage has been performed. At present the entire Norwegian continental shelf is scrutinised looking for concrete sites and an overview of total capacity. The Norwegian authorities, i.e. Norwegian Petroleum Directorate is also in a similar process. Lead by Det Norske Veritas (DnV) together with energy companies, R&D institutes and consulting authorities, a proposed “Guideline for Selection and Qualification of Sites…” is being issued spring 2010. Site characterisation being a critical phase achieving a safe long-term CO2 storage, it is essential to integrate these processes into an European experience and develop a consensus of “Best Practice”.