Petra Nova takes CCS top spot

THE Petra Nova CCS project has started up in the US, becoming the world’s largest operating post-combustion capture plant.

The facility uses an amine-based scrubbing process developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Kansai Electric Power to capture up to 1.6m t/y of CO₂ from a 240 MW-equivalent slipstream of flue gas produced by the WA Parish coal-fired power plant in Houston, Texas. It started up in September last year with final performance acceptance testing completed on 29 December.

Project owners NRG Energy and JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration say the project has so far delivered more than 100,000 t of CO₂ through a 128-km pipeline to the West Ranch oil field where it will be used for enhanced oil recovery. It is estimated that it will increase oil production from 300 bbl/d today to 15,000 bbl/d while also storing the CO₂.

Shunsaku Miyake, CEO of JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration congratulated the project team for delivering the project, which came in on schedule and on budget. He added: “We believe this project will contribute to significantly increasing incremental crude oil production from legacy oil fields and also will be a major step forward in helping to decrease CO₂ emissions globally.”

Petra Nova overtakes the 1m t/y Boundary Dam CCS project in Canada as the world’s largest post-combustion capture plant.