CASPER — The University of Wyoming’s Enhanced Oil Recovery Institute is partnering with a Michigan-based carbon capture company and energy industry groups to develop a significant expansion of Wyoming’s carbon capture and storage infrastructure.
The Enhanced Oil Recovery Institute and Carbon Solutions, a low-carbon energy research and development group, announced last month that they will co-lead the first step of the Wyoming Trails Carbon Hub project after receiving a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.
With the Wyoming Trails Carbon Hub, Carbon Solutions, UW’s Enhanced Oil Recovery Institute and their partners aim to develop a statewide carbon capture and storage pipeline network that better connects carbon dioxide emitters with CO2 storage facilities, and which could eventually transport millions of metric tons of CO2 across Wyoming.
“The big picture is a 10-year-plus vision for what it would look to capture all the CO2 in Wyoming,” said Richard Middleton, the CEO and co-founder of Carbon Solutions.
Middleton and the Enhanced Oil Recovery Institute’s Senior Reservoir Engineer Eric Robertson will lead the initial 18-month study of the commercial CO2 pipeline system.
Alongside the Department of Energy, their work is backed by Casper-based Glenrock Energy, natural gas giant Williams and a handful of other energy and carbon capture and storage companies and groups, including the Wyoming Energy Authority.
Wyoming’s current CO2 pipeline stretches in a diagonal line from ExxonMobil’s Shute Creek facility in the southwest corner of the state to the southeast corner of Montana. At various points offshoots link to ConocoPhillips’ Lost Cabin gas processing plant in Fremont County and enhanced oil recovery sites along the way.
Oil and gas companies currently use the pipeline to boost production; they inject the CO2 into the Earth to push out more oil.
While the pipeline stretches across Wyoming, it doesn’t connect with many of the CO2 emitters and potential carbon storage sites in the state.
The Wyoming Trails Carbon Hub pipeline would change that, putting the state and companies in a better position to meet their carbon capture and storage goals.
“The whole purpose of this project is to get the infrastructure needed in the state to actually meet the state’s