IIT Bombay, NTPC complete drilling India's 1st CO2 storage well; second underway

The collaboration, launched under the aegis of NITI Aayog in November 2022, brought together NETRA - the R&D wing of NTPC, and the Department of Earth Sciences, IIT Bombay, in building India's first geological storage atlas for coalbed methane-rich coalfields.

The atlas provided layer-by-layer simulation results with experimentally validated inputs for quantifying the potential for geological CO2 storage in four major coalfields.

The country achieved its first dedicated well, reaching a depth of 1200m in September, for potential CO2 storage. The drilling site in Pakri Barwadih, in the vicinity of a coal mining area in Jharkhand's Hazaribagh, was completed on November 15.

Notably, a second well drilling was initiated on December 21. Both CO2 injection and plume monitoring using these wells will be implemented, the institute said.

“As India stands at the cusp of honouring net-zero commitments in line with the 'Panchamrit' climate goals announced by the Prime Minister, accelerating indigenous science and technology outcomes for commercialisation of Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) technologies will be crucial to the journey towards 'Atmanirbhar' and 'Viksit' Bharat commitments,” said Dr. V.K. Saraswat, Member, NITI Aayog.

“We should also keep a strict watch on subsurface characterisation, conservative injection pressure limits, robust well design and sealing, and continuous monitoring of pressure and seismicity,” added Saraswat, also the Chairman, Advisory Committee, DST-National Centre of Excellence (NCOE) in CCUS at IIT Bombay.

Gurdeep Singh, CMD, NTPC, called the feat "an important step towards decarbonisation".

Prof. Shireesh Kedare, Director, IIT Bombay, emphasised the role of translational R&D in architecting the roadmap for India's energy transition and decarbonisation.

The project, which marked a shift in research from laboratories to field deployment, will provide feasibility and risk assessments for a full-scale CCS development, including a detailed storage complex analysis and a commercial development plan.

Preliminary studies indicate high geological CO2 storage potential in the North Karanpura coalfield, with the Pakri-Barwadih block showing potential to inject up to 15.5 Mt over a 10-year injection period.

It may be recalled that in 2017, IIT Bombay and NTPC collaborated to curate India's first CO2 capture and utilisation facility in the power sector, which led to the establishment of the Vindhyachal CCU plant that captures 20 tonnes of CO2 per day and converts it into fuel-methane.

India's CCUS journey is being advanced through a mission-mode approach, with the Ministry of Power as the nodal agency, supported by inter-ministerial collaboration to scale up CCUS technologies across hard-to-abate sectors.