Maersk eyes carbon sequestration business

Maersk eyes carbon sequestration business One strategy touted to fight global warming is carbon sequestration, capturing carbon dioxide from power plants and then injecting it underground, using it in some cases to enhance recovery of hydrocarbons.
   Maersk Tankers said last week it is prepared to enter the market by operating gas tankers ships to transport carbon dioxide.
   Maersk Tankers said in a statement issued at the International Scientific Congress on Climate Change in Copenhagen that it has examined the business case for entering into the CO2 transportation market for either offshore storage or enhanced oil recovery (EOR), using CO2 to increase oil recovery rates in maturing fields.
   'By utilizing our experience in transporting liquefied petrochemical and natural gasses, we have developed a large scale case for transport of CO2 for storage or EOR,' says Martin Fruergaard, senior vice president at Maersk Tankers.
   Maersk said its studies have found more than 750 million tons of CO2 are emitted from large stationary power plants close to the sea in the North Sea region alone. It said 15 handysize gas carriers with capacity of 20,000 cubic meters could transport more than half of Denmark's annual CO2 emissions for storage in the North Sea, the equivalent of all CO2 from large Danish stationary emission sources. It said the fraction of the CO2 retained in those selected reservoirs is likely to exceed 99 percent over 1,000 years, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
   Maersk said transporting CO2 by sea is cost-competitive and more flexible than pipelines on longer distances or in smaller quantities.