The US Bureau of Land Management’s Royal Gorge Field Office has begun a public scoping period for two proposed carbon dioxide wells near Gardner, Colo. Oxy USA, which operates the existing Sheep Mountain CO2 production unit, proposed the wells, the US Department of the Interior agency said on July 10. Comments will be accepted through July 25.
It said the project would take place within the boundaries of the company’s existing operation on both private and BLM surface lands. Existing roads, power lines, and maintenance facilities would be used. A pipeline would be needed, but would be installed in an existing corridor, the notice said.
One well, 7-15-I, would take place on an existing pad with currently producing wells, while a new pad would be constructed next to an existing pad in order to drill the other well, 7-15-D. Most of the expansion would be reclaimed and revegetated as soon as the rig leaves the pad. The notice said each well would take about 3 months to drill.
It noted that the Sheep Mountain unit is 6 miles south of Gardner and has been producing CO2 since the 1980s. The produced CO2 is transported through an existing pipeline to the Permian basin in West Texas, where it is injected underground into producing petroleum reservoirs which are in decline.
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