The Trump administration hasn’t been a fan of carbon capture, though it does play a vital role in enhanced oil recovery for some wells.
Injecting carbon dioxide into wells that have the right chemistry can help squeeze more oil and gas out of them, boosting overall economics.
Called enhanced oil recovery (EOR), the technique is keeping the carbon capture market hot. And it’s energizing a ranching collective’s carbon capture project in southeastern Wyoming.
That project is with Meriden Carbon, which was formed by a group of about 20 Wyoming ranchers, including Rowdy Petsch, who owns the C.B. Irwin Ranch, where the famed rodeo bronc Steamboat once ran.
Meriden’s project had been short-listed by the Department of Energy for about $9 million in funding during the Biden administration to drill a test well, as well as about $2.75 million from Wyoming Energy Authority.
The federal funding has been on hold since the Trump administration came on board, according to Meriden CEO and Wyoming landowner Jeff Kummer.
“Recent news out of the DOE is that they canceled several billion dollars’ worth of projects like ours,” Kummer said. “But ours is not on that list. I think there’s a reason for that. I think the reason is that in the state of Wyoming, projects like ours are continuing to move forward. And part of the reason is there’s a gigantic EOR opportunity in Wyoming in the years and decades to come.”
Can’t Be Late To Market
Kummer believes the federal funding for Meriden’s Steamboat project could still come through, but the company has decided not to wait.
It’s pushing ahead with drilling its test wells, using private sources of funds to replace the lost federal funds.
The test wells will verify the size and shape of the underground carbon storage facility and help these carbon cowboys bring their underground storage opportunity to market as quickly as possible.
The company can’t afford to wait, Kummer said. Other projects are moving ahead right now because the market demand is there.
Among these projects is the Tallgrass Trailblazer project, which happens to be Meriden’s neighbor in southeastern Wyoming.
“You see them moving carbon dioxide from ethanol facilities in the Midwest out into southeast Wyoming because of the suitability of the subsurface for carbon storage projects,” Kummer said. “That’s moved forward with very little outside funding, because there’s a market there.”
Tallgrass began working on a carbon capture project in 2021. That project includes converting the Trailblazer, a natural gas pipeline, to carbon dioxide transport instead.
The 400-mile pipeline will gather more than 10 million tons of carbon dioxide per year from various industries in Nebraska, Colorado, and Wyoming, for use in enhanced oil recovery.
The pipeline is also connected to a hydrogen production project in partnership with the University of Wyoming and others that seeks to develop a hydrogen production facility in Douglas.
Where The Geology Is Just Right
Not too many places in the world have the right geology for long-term storage of carbon dioxide underground. But the ranches in the area where Steamboat used to run are in a special place, geologically speaking.
These ranches, which span about 102,000 acres, have a layer of impermeable rock that can act as a lid to keep carbon dioxide from escaping. It’s the same type of barrier that has kept oil and gas reserves locked underground for millions of years.
The way these reservoirs work depends on the specific geology, which is why the project requires stratigraphic well testing, to determine what type of underground storage will work best.
For some reservoirs, the trapped carbon will chemically react with minerals in the surrounding rock. That creates a solid, chalky substance that further locks the carbon dioxide into place for long-term storage.
In other reservoirs, such as saline aquifers, the carbon dioxide dissolves into the briny saltwater, a process scientists call “dissolution storage.” In that case, the carbon dioxide will slowly descend to the bottom of the aquifer, also keeping it in place indefinitely.
Researchers over the past 20 to 30 years in Wyoming, North Dakota, and other oil and gas states have been studying carbon sequestration, to verify that the gas, which is kept under high enough pressure to be in a supercritical liquid state, will actually stay in place for the long haul.
The Center for Economic Geology Research and the School of Energy Resources in Wyoming are among the entities that are working on testing commercial scale carbon storage in the Cowboy State. They have been working in conjunction with the Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) in North Dakota, which has also been doing long-term studies in the Bell Creek oilfield with Denbury Onshore in southeastern Montana.
Agriculture Has To Innovate
Kummer is a longtime member of the North Dakota ranching community before buying land in Wyoming. He has a degree in petroleum engineering and, while in North Dakota, developed a successful company called Mineral Tracker.
It helped landowners track royalties for oil and gas production and other minerals.
Kiel Harding, meanwhile, lives on a fifth-generation cattle ranch that today runs a custom beef business, selling meat direct to consumers. He’s one of the carbon cowboys behind Meriden.
“This place used to just sell cattle,” Harding said. “And then we broke the mold and started another beef business.”
Harding’s custom beef business started during the COVID-19 pandemic because people were calling up out of the blue to ask if he had any beef he could sell them, amid broken supply chains that were leading to bare grocery store shelves.
“My phone rang for weeks with people wanting butchered beef,” Harding recalled. “So, we were like, well, let’s try something different.”
The diversification has helped him keep his ranch family-sized, and that’s what he’s hoping the Meriden carbon capture and storage project will continue to do for his ranch.
“You just have to be an opportunist and kind of look outside of what you’re doing,” he said. This is no different. I mean, we’re looking outside the box of what traditional ranches do for the future generation to make sure this place is still here.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
