Harsh Reality in the UAE
The 60% controlled Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) concession, featuring minority partners (Shell, Total, BP, ExxonMobil), expires in 2014. Amidst jockeying for renewal and terms, the IOCs are offering carbon capture technology to aid an existing project under the control of Masdar, the UAE’s clean technology entity, where costs have run out of control. In the largest commercial project ever, the UAE has plans to capture 5 million tons/year of carbon from 17 in-country sources, largely for use in enhanced oil recover, on which ADNOC is increasingly reliant. The problem has been that customers (ADNOC) and others are unwilling to pay the $100/ton required to collect and purify the CO2. In the US, C02-based EOR works at about half that price (running $15-30/barrel of oil recovered by enhanced means). None of these costs include the reduction in power plant efficiency, which can be substantial. While many long term carbon mitigation (and survival of coal-fired power) plans assume improved CO2 costs, the largest programs are still very expensive before consideration of the higher power costs.