U.S. Interior Approves ExxonMobil’s Carbon Storage Project in Wyoming

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management On Aug. 26 granted approval for ExxonMobil Corporation’s proposal for permanent underground storage of carbon dioxide in areas located at Lincoln and Sweetwater counties in Kemmerer, Wyoming. The project will capture carbon dioxide produced along with natural gas at Shute Creek Plant for sequestration at disposal wells rather than venting the gas into the atmosphere to combat climate change.This marks the first approval of a carbon storage project on federal lands. This process involves carbon capture, utilization and storage which helps in reducing the carbon dioxide percentage in the environment.

The proposal includes a disposal well pad and pipelines. The well will be capable of storing ~60 million cubic feet of carbon dioxide per day at a depth of 18,000 feet in Madison formation. The bureau issued a new policy in June 2022 for safe and secure gas sequestration on public lands into depleted underground aquifers and geological formations. The stored gas can also be consumed later for Enhanced Oil Recovery, or EOR, by injecting carbon dioxide in oil reservoirs to improve recoveries. The United States has been using this technique since the 1940s to produce more oil by deploying EOR.

The Biden administration aims to provide a carbon free electrical grid by 2035 and net zero emission by 2050. Earlier on August 26, the U.S Department of Energy of Fossil Fuels and Carbon Management announced $31 million funding for developing carbon capture technologies. The projects will be managed by the National Energy Technology Laboratory, which is also working on  hydrogen gas storage. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed into law in November 2021, provides $12 billion in funding for carbon management technologies out of which $2.54 billion will be utilized for Carbon Capture and Sequestration projects between 2022-2025.