Synergia Energy (AIM: SYN) aims to drill an appraisal well at the Camelot field, forming part of its UK Medway Hub Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) plan, in the next 18-24 months.
Speaking to Energy Voice, Synergia CEO Roland Wessel said that the well aims to verify geological studies and assess the reservoir’s Bunter sandstone formation.
“We’re likely going to drill into the Rotliegend formation as well to establish reservoir pressure,” he added. “Rotliegend is depleted after producing gas for around 20 years, so we’re not entirely sure what the reservoir pressure is.
“And we will likely do injection tests as well in both Bunter and Rotliegend.”
Synergia’s Medway Hub CCS project, based on the Isle of Grain near Rochester in Kent, aims to provide a merchant solution for CO2 emitters.
Synergia and Wintershall Dea received a carbon storage licence from the NSTA for Camelot, based around 15-18 miles off the coast of Norfolk, on a 50:50 basis in August 2023 as part of the UK’s first carbon storage licensing round.
The field has an estimated storage capacity of between 60m and 100m tonnes with yearly injection rates above 5mtpa.
“We are well placed to get this project up and running and we’re anxious to be one of the forerunners to injecting CO2 in the 2029-2030 timeframe,” Wessel said.
He added that the reservoir is well characterised with high quality 3D seismic data.
“We don’t expect any surprises regarding the structure and reservoir, but we need to confirm those,” Wessel said.
He added that, with the well due to be drilled in the first quarter of 2026, Synergia aims to start planning and tendering for the rig and associated services later this year.
UK CCS
The Medway CCS project will be run on a merchant basis, with UK emitters paying for the transportation and storage of CO2 from combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power station emissions under long-term contract.
The gas will be captured and liquified using National Grid’s LNG facilities before being transported by tankers from coastal CCGT facilities to a floating injection, storage and offloading (FISO) vessel.
The CO2 will then be injected into depleted gas fields, such as Camelot, for permanent storage.
While Harbour Energy is currently in the process of buying Wintershall, Wessel does not expect this to affect the project.
“I think there are some potential changes in personnel on the other side of the JV, but it’s going to be business as usual,” he noted.
Towards 2028
A pre-FEED study was previously completed by Axis Well Technology, which confirms the technical viability of the project as well as providing scoping economics.
Synergia is focused on doing a technical and commercial evaluation and de-risking the storage asset. Drilling the appraisal well will be followed by a FEED study and applying for a storage permit.
“We’re doing the technical work to establish containment and injectivity rates and to verify capacity and reprocessing seismic data,” Wessel noted.
“The licence that we have will culminate in an application for a storage permit. Once we have satisfied the NSTA’s requirements and we’ve verified no significant leaks and our own requirements around commerciality, we plan to apply for the storage permit in 2028.
“That will probably come the other side of FID where we’ve lined up the emitting customers on a long-term contracted basis.”
© Supplied by Synergia EnergyBeyond Camelot, Synergia has plans to bid for other UK reservoirs to develop into CCS fields.
“Our FISO concept allows us to relocate the vessel from one storage reservoir to another,” Wessel noted. “Unlike a fixed platform, we can simply move the FISO to a new mooring point over a new target reservoir and thereby extend the life of the project.”
This flexibility means that the company is also looking abroad for potential cargoes of CO2.
“We are targeting continental European cargoes from Zebrugge, Rotterdam, where they’re building carbon hubs,” Wessel added.
Early risk assessment
The Camelot project also recently passed its early risk assessment (ERA), which it submitted at the end of January, marking a key milestone on the way to receiving its storage permit.
“We’ve identified key issues that need to be resolved,” Wessel said. “The underlying message from the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) is we have to establish no significant risk of leakage, that we can verify that the CO2 will stay in the reservoir permanently.
“We’re well-versed in verifying containment,” he added.
“We use seismic information to verify the structure, we examine all the legacy wells in the area, we make sure we’re not going to inject CO2 beyond the spill point, and we have monitoring equipment to understand how the CO2 is migrating within the reservoir as we’re injecting it.”
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