Why Arabian Gulf exporters are well-positioned to lead on carbon-negative oil – The National

Why Arabian Gulf exporters are well-positioned to lead on carbon-negative oil – The National

How can extracting a barrel of oil be good for the environment? We have heard increasingly about net-zero carbon oil production. But building oil production into a system for reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide seems somewhere between a miracle, alchemy and fraud.

The gas CO2, the main villain for climate change, is a hero when it comes to enhancing oil recovery. When injected into underground reservoirs, under the right conditions, it mixes with the oil and liberates molecules that were stuck in minute pores in the rock.

This boosts the share of the oil in the ground that can be recovered from about 40 per cent to 60 per cent, which in a country such as the UAE could amount to tens of billions of extra barrels.