Dakota Gasification

Figure 12. COz-EOR operation diagram. COz injection into reservoir to flood. Diagram courtesy of Dakota Gasification Company.

Every day, almost 5,000 tons of liquefied carbon dioxide arrives from a plant near Beulah, N.D. This plant is operated by the Dakota Gasification Co., which converts coal to natural gas. The liquid carbon dioxide passes through a 220-mile-long pipeline before it is pumped underground in Canada. 

The economic viability of enhanced oil recovery with C02 flooding is limited to the cases where C02 is available at low cost. This is the case for the West-Texas fields, where C02 from natural sources is available, or at the Weyburn field in Canada, where C02 can be made available from the North Dakota Gasification Plant. Unlike the situation in the United States, almost the entire European oil production is located offshore. There, enhanced oil recovery activities would be more costly, simply resulting from the larger spatial extent of production units and the entire higher costs of offshore operations. Furthermore, there are no low-cost industrial C02 sources available in the closer vicinity of the North Sea oil fields, nor is there an infrastructure for C02 transport. 

There is further the Weyburn field in Canada, where C02 from the Dakota gasification plant is used for enhanced oil recovery. The Weyburn case stands for an example of the use of C02 from a fossil-fuel plant for enhanced oil recovery and for underground storage. Nevertheless this activity is also performed within the context of hydrocarbon recovery, where special regulations apply in many countries worldwide. 

Perry, M. and Eliason, D. C02 Recovery and Sequestration at Dakota Gasification Company. (2004) Gasification Technologies Conference, San Francisco, California. 

One of the first commercial-size, coal gasification plants in the United States was the Great Plains Synfiiels plant that is operated by Dakota Gasification in Beulah, ND. This plant consumes over 5.5 million tonnes of coal per year and produces over 54 billion standard cubic feet (1.4 billion Nm3)of natural gas, 365,000 tonnes per year of ammonia, 24 million gallons of... 

In the Dakota Gasification synfiiels plant in North Dakota, waste sulfur dioxide (SO2) reacts with ammonia and air to make AS that is 99.5% pure. It has a capacity of500 tonnes per day of granular AS. This process is referred to as the Ammonium Sulphate Forced Oxidation (ASFO) system. It was developed, patented and commercialized by General Electric Environmental Services, Inc. (GEESI). GEESI was acquired by Marsulex Inc. (North York, Ontario, Canada) in 1997243. 

Dakota Gasification Co. U.S. 1984 Lignite and ref. residue Lurgi Dry Ash Rectisol Synthetic natural gas (methane)... 

FIGURE 6-2. Dakota Gasification Company and the Great Plains Synfuels Plant. Source Great Plains Gasification Project, 1987. 

Manuf./Distrib. Allchem Ind. Atofina Concord Crowley Tar Prods. Dakota Gasification Honeywell Perf. Polymers PMC Spec. Spectrum Quality Prods. 

The Great Plains Synfuels Plant near Beulah, North Dakota, operated by the Dakota Gasification Company, provides strong impetus for the use of coal in the United States—the production of synthetic liquid fuel and gaseous fuels. The plant also produces carbon dioxide, which is captured and piped 200 miles north to Saskatchewan, Canada, where it is used for enhanced oil recovery (FOR) in the Weyburn Field. An additional amount of carbon dioxide is discharged to the atmosphere. The plant also produces anhydrous ammonia and ammonium sulfate for agricultural use, as well as a variety of other minor products. 

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