A multistate working group convened by two western governors urged the Trump administration and the 115th Congress to make carbon dioxide pipelines a priority within a more-ambitious US infrastructure agenda. The State CO2-EOR Deployment Work Group also released a report recommending that the federal government support development of CO2 pipeline networks to securely transport large volumes of the gas to US oil fields for enhanced recovery operations.
Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead (R) and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) formed the working group in September 2015 as a follow-up to a Western Governors Association resolution calling for federal incentives to accelerate carbon capture deployment at power plants and industrial facilities, and increase the use of CO2 in enhanced oil recovery while safely storing the gas underground.
“Carbon capture for enhanced oil recovery with CO2 storage is a game changer for the American economy,” said Brad Crabtree, vice-president for fossil energy at the Great Plains Institute (GPI) in Minneapolis. GPI provides staff support for the working group.
Crabtree said, “But to make the current potential a reality, we need an investment in the nation’s energy infrastructure. This report outlines the specific policies and federal support necessary to build the pipelines that will boost America's energy independence, create jobs, and decrease emissions.”
The report, which GPI released on Feb. 23, includes a map outlining five potential large-volume, long-distance CO2 pipeline corridors. These pipelines could expand the annual supply of manmade CO2 available for EOR by 150 million tons by 2030, when coupled with targeted federal incentives for deployment of carbon capture technology.
The analysis shows that robust pipeline systems on this scale could triple the existing US EOR industry, with about 375 million bbl/year of US crude oil production and an estimated reduction of 22% in annual US oil imports valued at $30 billion. They recommended CO2 pipeline systems have the potential to drive an estimated $75 billion of capital investment and stimulate more than $30 billion/year in economic activity.
Lack of pipeline systems is a major obstacle to increasing CO2 deployment for EOR, Crabtree said. “Trunk pipelines are needed to link industrial and power plant CO2 sources to oil field customers, and they must be built at very large scale across regions to make economic sense.”
The working group, which includes officials from 10 state governments, recommends that the federal government play a targeted role, supplementing private capital, in financing increased capacity for priority trunk pipelines to transport CO2 from industrial facilities and power plants not currently served by pipeline systems to oil fields for enhanced recovery.
It also calls on Congress and the president to work with states, tribal governments and key stakeholders to identify and foster development of these pipeline corridors, including support for planning, streamlined permitting, and financing.
Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].
