The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) plans to expand production from onshore oil wells by 14 per cent in five years, and has identified at least one site to inject captured carbon dioxide. Abdul Munim al Kindy, the general manager for the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations (ADCO) told the company's in-house publication in an interview released today that 197,000 barrels per day (bpd) would be added to onshore production capacity by 2013. The company has set a long-term goal of increasing capacity from the present level of between 1.3 million and 1.4 million bpd to 1.8 million bpd by 2017. The initial expansion would be led by a US$4.5 billion (Dh16.52bn) upgrade to three ageing fields that would add 100,000 bpd, to production capacity, Mr Kindy said. "ADCO is entrusted with sustaining a level of production for a long plateau period," he said. "A lot of investment and effort is needed to maintain current sustainable rates; this effort is unfortunately not well recognised in the market." An additional 227,000 bpd would be added in two stages - by 2014 and 2017, he said. The company accounts for 60 per cent of the emirate's oil production, with 20 per cent of that destined for the domestic market. Mr Kindy said ADCO was also moving forward with plans to inject carbon dioxide into ageing onshore wells, increasing their production as well as substituting it for natural gas, which is needed across the country to produce electricity. The Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar), has plans to develop an emirate-wide system to capture carbon dioxide from a power plant, aluminium smelter and steel plant - all likely to be located in Taweelah - and sell it to Adnoc for injection into oil reservoirs to increase well pressure. The scheme is being promoted as a way to reduce the emirate's carbon footprint at the same time as it boosts oil and electricity production. Mr Kindy said ADCO needed to study carbon dioxide's effects on the company's reservoirs before moving forward with the carbon capture scheme. Carbon dioxide has been injected into sandstone oil reservoirs in Texas and other parts of the US for years, but the technology has not been used extensively with carbonate reservoirs, the geology type found in Abu Dhabi. "There are also great risks that need to be evaluated. One such ADCO [carbon dioxide] project, the type we envisage for North East Abu Dhabi fields, is equivalent to all North America [carbon dioxide] projects combined." ADCO has previously said it was working with Masdar to study the possibility of using carbon dioxide in oil wells, but has never identified the specific reservoirs targeted by the scheme. The North East Abu Dhabi fields include Al Dhabiya, Rumaitha and Shanaget, and are located near the coast about 50km south-west of the capital. cstanton@thenational.ae