Algeria’s gas fields seek to set eco-example

A gas field in the Sahara Desert is seeking to set a global environmental example with a project to bury carbon dioxide instead of spewing it into the atmosphere.

A joint venture of Algerian and international oil firms in In Salah, one of Algeria’s largest natural gas fields, has invested $100 million to capture the greenhouse gas as it’s emitted and inject it deep underground.
The virtues and risks of the technique, called carbon capture and storage, were hotly debated at U.N. climate talks in Poznan, Poland, earlier this month.

“A hundred million dollars is a large sum for anybody, but we had to start somewhere,” said Michael Mossman of the British oil firm BP PLC, who heads the venture with Norway’s Statoil and Algeria’s national oil company, Sonatrach.

AP