An edit of a P3 comment:
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The International Energy Agency just sent a tweet linking to a new report (PDF of exec summary) entitled "resources to reserves 2013". The web story has the top-level figures.

But it's the number in the tweet that I'm writing about: "even a 1% increase in the average recovery factor could add more than 80 bb, or 6%, to global proven oil reserve." I've wiffled about carbon capture and storage before: my current view is that it's only being so aggressively pushed because it fits neatly with existing oil firms' goal of pursuing enhanced oil recovery. (I don't think that's been done nefariously - it just appears to many to be a win-win option that makes politicians lives easier as well as fitting with existing firms' aims.)

So that IEA number: a 1% increase in average recovery factor would add 80 billion barrels of oil. The exec summary goes on to say that:

"Over the last 20 years, the average recovery factor from the Norwegian Continental Shelf has seen a significant shift – from 34% to around 46% today. // If the shift seen in Norway were to be achieved in all the basins of the world, it would double current proven reserves. A similar additional shift could be achieved by adopting EOR techniques on a much wider scale. Currently, there is a significant increase in the number of EOR pilot tests, especially those using chemical methods and CO2 injection. Examples may be found around the world, from China, Russia, the Middle East and North America to Argentina."

Double reserves? If a 6% increase is 80bb, that's a lot of CO2, eh? Here's the IEA CCS roadmap: "as long as fossil fuels and carbon-intensive industries play dominant roles in our economies, carbon capture and storage (CCS) will remain a critical greenhouse gas reduction solution." The same arguments are made in the UK (PDF). Here's Ed Davey in the foreward:

"In the decades to come, emissions must fall while delivering more energy and more growth to a world hungry for both. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) will play a vital role in helping us resolve this dilemma. CCS is the only technology that can turn high carbon fuels into genuinely low carbon electricity. It is essential if we are to meet the challenge of climate change whilst maintaining security of energy supplies."

The only way I see it becoming a 'critical greenhouse gas reduction solution' is where it's not being used to increase the recovery factor. CO2 EOR obviously does nothing for the CO2 from the fuel that it's enabling to be burned.

Can someone make a counter-argument? You'd need to be able to show that any stored CO2 (e.g. from power plant coal) used for EOR at least cancelled the CO2 output it enables. Is anyone doing that? Given they're talking about hypothetical doublings of output, I'd be surprised if this kind of venture can even hope to approach even carbon neutral, but that's just a hunch.

One might want to also argue that, by pursuing the technology, we'll open up new possibilities later - I don't find that very comforting, personally. There's also the counter-argument that you've locked us into a fossil-fuel based transport system. Which, of course, can't happen if we're serious about carbon reduction: globally, the transport sector is due to double in size by 2050, given its rapid expansion in developing countries. Global transport CO2 is currently ~14% of total CO2 output. Most government targets are using an "80% reduction by 2050" number (though many are arguing that needs to be net zero). Without decarbonising transport, it would rapidly end up moving towards and beyond 100% of our total allowable output way before 2050.

If the IEA's analysis of how CO2 EOR can change recovery rates is right, CCS could well be a lethal dead end. If I'm wrong, I have nothing against the technology itself, if burying CO2 is what it takes. But it's looking suspiciously like snake oil to me. Need to work on some numbers...