A Practical Framework for CO2 Transportation and Injection Design by Analyzing Both Technical and Economic Aspects

Abstract The main objective of this research is to propose a practical framework for CO2 transportation and injection design by analyzing the impact of pipeline length and mass flowrate on cost-effective aspects. Numerical methods are applied using experimental data of CO2 properties at different pressures and temperatures to provide the most accurate model designs for CO2 transporting and injection considering both technical and economic aspects. This paper used an open-source coding language to integrate the physical and thermodynamic properties of CO2 into software to predict phase behavior, viscosity, density, entropy, etc. under different pressure and temperature conditions. This simulator was then expanded using advanced hydraulic models to predict static and dynamic behaviors of CO2 in pipelines and tubing with and without booster pumps. Sensitivity analysis was carried out to study the effects of pipeline length, mass flowrate, and the number of booster pumps on the economic aspect of CO2 transportation and storage. A case study was performed using the developed computational model to optimize a hypothetical CO2 transportation system in the Permian Basin to minimize the CO2 project's cost. The obtained results showed that using the developed computational simulator for designing CO2 transportation and injection provides more reliable prediction for pressure and temperature profiles without using correlations for CO2 properties. The sensitivity analysis reveals that the number of booster pumps and pipe diameter are the two key variables in designing a CO2 transportation and storage system. The next sensitive variables are the mass injection rate and the pipe length. The results from the case study showed that there is no universal design solution when it comes to CO2 transportation and storage design; instead, each project must be tuned and optimized accordingly by varying all the inputs. The developed software can help optimize CO2 transportation based on a specific desired system with a specific desired injection rate.