Assessment of carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery and associated carbon dioxide retention resources of the United States

In 2020, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) completed a probabilistic assessment of the volume of technically recoverable oil resources that could be produced using current carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR) technologies in amenable conventional oil reservoirs underlying onshore and State-owned offshore waters (herein after, onshore and State waters areas) of the conterminous United States. Our assessment also includes estimates of the mass of CO2 that could be stored (retained) in the assessed oil reservoirs following the application of the CO2-EOR process. The USGS assessment team evaluated more than 3,500 oil reservoirs that were amenable to miscible CO2 injection. The assessed reservoirs are located in 185 plays previously defined by a USGS National Oil and Gas Assessment in 33 petroleum provinces of seven national regions. The team estimated that the total technically recoverable oil resulting from the application of the CO2-EOR process ranges from approximately 25,000 million barrels (MMbbl) at the P5 probability percentile to as much as 32,000 MMbbl at the P95 probability percentile, with a mean of 29,000 MMbbl. The associated CO2 retention ranges from approximately 7,400 million metric tons (Mt) at the P5 percentile to as much as 9,500 Mt at the P95 percentile, with a mean of 8,400 Mt.