As Iran stands in 8th place among countries that emit CO2 the most, Carbon capture and storage is a vital technology to reduce CO2 emission for this country. Besides, Iran with a huge oil and gas reservoir has this opportunity to use them for sequestration CO2. This study tried to find whether implementing CCS in Iran is viable or not. Because of the specifications and geopolitics of Ramin power plant, this plant is chosen for implementation of capturing plant. On the other hand, among the vicinity of 50 km of the power plant, by using EOR screening method, Ramin oil field is chosen for CO2 sequestration site. Also, this study by using calculation methods and IECM software tried to estimate the cost of implementation of a capturing plant in Ramin power plant. As a result, to find the impact of CCS implementation on the project, COE for both plants with and without capturing plant compared.
At the first step, to develop a model, a fixed price for natural gas is considered. By considering 30$/mscm for natural gas price (based on 2018 subsidized price in Iran), our results show that by implementation of capturing plant, COE will increase from 31.9 $/Mwh to 63.66 $/Mwh. Although this price is still less than the average electricity price in the world (140$/MWh in 2020), increasing 99.5% in COE might make social and economic problems in Iran. The capturing plant not only caused a dramatic increase in COE but also simultaneously it will decrease the amount of electricity output from 847.5 MWh down to 646.4 MWh. Our cost estimation shows that in a fixed NG's price CO2 avoided cost is 71.03 $/ton of CO2.
In the next step, EOR project is chosen for the sequestration of captured CO2. Results from EOR screening method developed by Taber et al. showed that Ramin oil field in the vicinity of the power plant not only can pass CO2-EOR screening parameters but also it can sequestrate a huge amount of CO2. It is estimated that this field can sequestrate 384–1664 million tons of CO2, which is suitable for storing over 100 years of Ramin power plant's emission. To find the incremental oil production from injecting CO2 through the oil field, a rule of thumb (developed by Nelms) is used. According to this rule of thumb, incremental oil production can reach 20000 barrels per day. To calculate the benefit from EOR project, it is necessary to consider production cost. In this study, 20 $/bbl is assumed as the cost of EOR (without considering purchasing CO2 and taxes) and 14% of oil revenue is assumed as the royalty tax for NIOC (National Iranian Oil Company). For the final step in this project, a sensitivity analysis has been done between oil price, EOR revenue, and COE. This analysis shows that in our project for the oil price over 51$/bbl, the excessive oil production from EOR project not only can compensate all capturing and transportation costs but also can cover EOR cost.