Japanese giants participate in RI project

Japanese giants Nissho Iwai Corp. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. will participate in a project in Indonesia to recycle carbon dioxide collected from local natural gas and electric power production facilities, according to a report.

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun quoted officials of the two companies as saying that the 100 billion yen project will include the participation of a research center for oil and natural gas technologies affiliated with the Ministry of Mining and Energy.

The Japanese and Indonesian parties will carry out feasibility studies soon and plan to start building a large gas-collection plant by the end of 2004 and have it come on-stream by 2006.

They aim to collect 30,000 metric tons of CO2 a day and sell the gas to operators of nearby oil fields through a company they plan to set up.

Injecting CO2 into oil fields makes crude oil less viscous and can increase production by some 50 percent. In addition, during the injection process, some of the gas is absorbed into the ground, thus reducing the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere.

The project will benefit from a new technology developed jointly by Mitsubishi Heavy and Kansai Electric Power Co. to extract CO2 from exhaust gases through a chemical reaction.

Mitsubishi Heavy will oversee the physical aspects of the project, while Nissho Iwai will handle the finances and overall coordination. (*)