California Institute for Energy and Environment (CIEE)

WESTCARB (the West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership) is one of seven research partnerships co-funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to characterize regional carbon sequestration opportunities and to develop action plans for pilot-scale validation tests. WESTCARB is exploring opportunities in a six-state region (California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, and Alaska) for removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere by enhancing natural processes and by capturing it at industrial facilities before it is emitted; both will help slow the atmospheric buildup of this greenhouse gas (GHG) and its associated climatic effects. A key part of the project is identifying subsurface locations to store the captured CO2; such sinks include deep geologic formations such as oil and gas reservoirs, and saline formations that are essentially leak-proof. These potential sinks will then be matched with the major CO2 sources such as the main utilities and industrial emitters. In addition to identifying subsurface locations, an estimate of the total storage capacity of these locations needs to be made. Golder Associates, Inc. (Golder) has been contracted to determine estimates for the storage capacity (or resource) of depleted and active onshore oil and gas reservoirs for the state of California. using historical production and current (2005) reserve data. Estimates were made on a field level and do not include State- or Federally-owned offshore fields. The following document provides the methodology used for capacity estimation and the results of the numerical analysis.