A DURHAM University professor has unveiled a groundbreaking report that could revolutionise the North-Sea oil industry, triggering a £150bn bonanza.

World-renowned expert Professor Jon Gluyas is hoping that Government and industry leaders will support his push for carbon dioxide (CO2) to be used to improve oil extraction from fields, which he calculated could secure our energy supplies for the next 50 years.

However, Prof Gluyas believes the UK faces a race against time to implement the necessary infrastructure before it becomes too expensive to do so.

If the findings of his study, which was funded by Dong Energy (UK) and Ikon Science, are acted upon Prof Gluyas believes it would add at least £60bn to the Treasury and make the UK selfsufficient rather than increasingly dependent upon the likes of Russia for its fossil fuel.

Significantly, the process would also allow the UK to develop expertise, making it a world leader in carbon capture and storage technology and help meet the Government’s commitment to CO2 emissions reduction.

Mr Gluyas, a professor in geo-energy and carbon capture and storage at the university’s department of earth sciences, said: “Time is running out to make best use of our precious remaining oil reserves because we’re losing vital infrastructure as the oil fields decline and are abandoned.

Once the infrastructure is removed, we will never go back and the opportunity will be wasted.

“We need to act now to develop the capture and transportation infrastructure to take the CO2 to where it is needed. This would be a world-leading industry using new technology to deliver carbon dioxide to the North Sea oil fields.”

Oil is traditionally recovered by flushing oil wells with water at pressure. Since the Seventies, oil fields in west Texas, US, have used natural resources of carbon dioxide to aid recovery and Prof Gluyas believes this method can be adapted for offshore production to boost North Sea yields by an extra three billion barrels of oil over the next ten to 15 years.

David Hanstock, a founding director of Progressive Energy and director of Coots, which is developing an offshore CO2 transport and storage infrastructure in the North Sea, said: “The UK has significant storage capacity potential for captured carbon dioxide in North Sea oil and gas fields. There is a unique opportunity to develop an offshore industry using our considerable experience in offshore engineering.

“This would give us a technical lead on injecting and monitoring CO2 that we could then export to the wider world to establish the UK as a world leader in carbon capture and storage technology.”