Applications

On the exploration front, gas discoveries by oil and gas companies out-number those of oil. In addition to this factor there has been imperatives from both the environmental and economic fronts for producers to displace both black oil / distillate and coal consumption with natural gas.

Over the years much of the world's sweetest (purest) proven gas reserves have been exploited by oil and gas companies. It makes apparent pragmatic economic sense to develop sweet gas reserves ahead of less attractive sour gas reserves because the cost of exploitation of sour reserves is usually much higher.

As the industry has developed, many gas wells and deposits have not been made commercial for several reasons. Despite strong demand, the cost to commercialise many of these marginally economic gas reserves remains cost prohibitive for producers. A very high percentage of these non-commercial gas reserves are due to the high CO₂ content of the gas.

A sizeable inventory of proven gas reserves are in the ground waiting to be exploited economically. While high oil and gas prices have assisted to make many of the previously uneconomic reserves viable, the high capital cost of treatment and handling of the CO₂ continues to be a barrier to development. Cool Energy, with its CryoCell^® technology and ability to reduce capital and operating costs by 25% compared to conventional methods, is planning to target these gas fields.

The Kyoto Protocol will also encourage many gas producers to dispose of CO₂ versus emitting it to the atmosphere.

There is a significant market potential in both newly discovered applications for the technology and (more significantly) the commercialization of existing reserves, the wells of which have either been plugged and abandoned or indeed that the discoveries have not had development wells drilled due to the prospect of not being economically viable.

The CryoCell^® technology becomes even more attractive when combined with carbon dioxide sequestration in geologic formations including oil and gas reservoirs, unmineable coal seams, and deep saline reservoirs. These are structures that have stored crude oil, natural gas, brine and CO₂ over millions of years. Many power plants and other large emitters of CO₂ are located near geologic formations that are amenable to CO₂ storage. In many cases, injection of CO₂ into a geologic formation can enhance the recovery of hydrocarbons, providing value-added by-products that can offset the cost of CO₂ capture and sequestration. Given that CO₂ comes off the CryoCell^® in liquid form, the cost to then sequester is minimal compared with conventional technologies.

Another potential market for the CryoCell^® technology is Coal Bed Methane. Often this source of natural gas requires multiple well heads in one area or they are tied into one gas processing facility. The processing plants are usually not large in size and could be quite amenable to using the CryoCell^®. Cool Energy is undertaking economic life cycle studies of these potential applications.

Cool Energy's proprietary process offers the following advantages over current CO₂ removal processes:

Eliminates the use of chemicals and solvents
CO₂ is removed as a liquid thereby allowing low cost sequestration and elimination of greenhouse gas emissions
Lower capital and operating costs
Reduced weight and footprint
Simpler operation
Fewer supporting utilities
No corrosion concerns
Configuration and process flexibility to meet a range of applications

Gas producers with undeveloped gas fields that fall into the descriptions outlined above and requiring a CO₂ removal process with these advantages, are invited to contact Cool Energy to discuss the potential application of the CryoCell^® technology to bring these fields into commercial development.