The Weyburn CO₂ Monitoring and Storage Project in Saskatchewan

Pumping captured carbon dioxide into oil reservoirs not only represents a significant opportunity to store greenhouse gases underground instead of releasing them into the atmosphere, it also increases the amount of oil production from mature Canadian oil reserves. The Weyburn CO₂ Monitoring and Storage Project is an excellent example of how Canadian ingenuity is contributing to the global challenge of climate change.

The monitoring project builds on the Weyburn enhanced oil recovery project, announced in 1997, which uses an innovative technology to pump CO₂ into the oil-bearing formation to force out more oil. The CO₂ monitoring project is unique because scientists and researchers can collect background information before the oil field is flooded with CO₂. This enables them to compare before and after results and will help them better understand the interaction and relationships between oil recovery and CO₂ storage

According to the Canada’s Climate Change Plan, it is estimated that this type of technology could increase production from mature Canadian oil reservoirs by between 8 and 25 percent of the original oil in place, increasing potential recovery by between 3 and 9 billion barrels of oil. 

The Weyburn field is also the site of a major international research study conducted under the auspices of the International Energy Agency (IEA) Greenhouse Gas Research and Development Program. The IEA is a group of countries including Europe, North America, Australia, Japan and New Zealand that seek to protect themselves from catastrophic changes in the supply of fossil fuels. The GHG Research and Development Program is helping facilitate involvement by foreign governments and corporations in the Weyburn project.

To find out more about the Weyburn project, visit the web site of the Petroleum Technology Research Centre at www.ptrc.ca.