SACROC

From Global Energy Monitor
This article is part of the Global Fossil Infrastructure Tracker, a project of Global Energy Monitor.
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Early photo of SACROC. Credit: Abilene Reporter-News


SACROC (Scurry Area Canyon Reef Operating Committee) is the most productive CO2 enhanced oil recovery (CO2 EOR) field in the United States, a key hub for Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS). As of 2019, the 56,000-acre[1] SACROC produced over 28,000 barrels per day of oil via CO2 EOR.[2]

Located in West Texas' Permian Basin, the field was also the first in the United States to achieve commercial production using the drilling technique in 1972[3] and the Railroad Commission of Texas approved of SACROC's CO2 EOR injection process in 1970.[4]Standard Oil was the operator of the production site.[5] Before SACROC mastered the CO2 EOR craft, the oil industry attempted to use injectants including fire, LPG, nitrogen, and flue gas to free up more of the original oil in place.[6]

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The carbon used to do oil drilling at the field comes from both the Val Verde Basin gas plants, where carbon is refined into a pure stream product for CO2 EOR production, and the McElmo Dome.[7] Natural carbon dioxide is currently the source of 78.7% of the CO2 for CO2 EOR in the United States[8] and CO2 EOR currently is the final carbon sink for nine of the ten biggest U.S.-based Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) projects currently commercially operational.[9] Traditionally known as CCS, CO2 EOR is a central component of a rebranding effort which began in 2012 known as CCUS, or carbon capture utilization and storage. The "U" in CCUS, in this case, is using carbon to drill for more oil.[10]

A 2009 paper pointed to SACROC as the most greenhouse gas emitting CO2 EOR field out of six major fields quantified.[11]

Explosions

In 2020, a CO2 plant servicing SACROC exploded in Snyder, Texas. No one was hurt, but videos taken by area residents showed a powerful blast that took place at the facility.[12][13]

Snyder gas plant explosion

"Kinder Morgan experienced abnormal operations at its SACROC unit, located in Snyder, Texas, as a result of a pipeline pigging operation," Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, operating partner at the plant, said of the blast in an official statement. "A flare functioned as designed to minimize the impact of the abnormal operation, and the fire has burned out. The company isolated the facility and worked with local resources, including the Snyder Fire Department, to secure the area. There were no injuries, the appropriate regulatory agencies were notified and air monitoring was conducted as a precaution."[14]

In October 2017, a pipeline located at the SACROC CO2 EOR field operated by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners also exploded, injuring 8-10 people, including—a local media outlet reported—"one person who had shrapnel in his leg and back." Residents in the area said the blowout, which happened at Country Road 258, felt like an earthquake.[15]

Earthquakes, Pollution

A 2015 study also showed that the ground lifted 10 cm at SACROC between 2007-2011 as a result of drilling. The authors of the study concluded it was "mainly caused by CO2 injection." In that time period, as much CO2 was injected underground as the time period dating between the premier days of the field dating between 1972-2003. Kinder Morgan Energy Partners is the dominant CO2 EOR driller at SACROC.[16]

The SACROC CO2 treatment facility operated by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, also emitted 425,971.5 metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere in 2019.[17] That amounts to 92,640 passenger vehicles driven for a year and 77,375 homes' electricity use for one year, according to the EPA's Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator.[18] The SACROC facility also emits high levels of PM 10, VOCs, ammonia, PM 2.5, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, methane, NOx, and sulfur dioxide, according to EPA pollution data.[19]

"Something Invisible," "Step on Gas" Ads

A 2003 advertisement published by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, boasts that "Thanks to something invisible, the Permian's future is solid." "You can't see or touch carbon dioxide, but its benefits to the Permian are tangible," the ad reads. "CO2 flooding breathes new life into secondary oil recovery projects, and Kinder Morgan CO2 is using the power of CO2 to launch the next phase of productivity in the Permian basin."[20]

2003 CO2 EOR promotion ad by Kinder Morgan. Credit: Odessa American

Another 2003 newspaper advertisement by Kinder Morgan declares that "To pick up the pace, you have to step on the gas: carbon dioxide, that is."[21]

CCUS Rebrand

Beginning in 2011-2012, the oil industry and the U.S. Department of Energy began rebranding Carbon Capture and Storage as CCUS for CO2 EOR,[22] an effort coordinated by the DOE Office of Fossil Energy, then led by Charles D. McConnell. U.S. Rep. Mike Conaway, who represented a district overlapping with the Permian Basin, also chipped in on the rebranding rollout effort during a 2011 press conference kickoff event hosted by the National Enhanced Oil Recovery Initiative.[23][24] The National Enhanced Oil Recovery Initiative has since also rebranded as the Carbon Capture Coalition.[25]

The Energy Department further spearheaded the rebrand by publishing the 2011 report titled “Improving Domestic Energy Security and Lowering CO2 Emissions with 'Next Generation' CO2-Enhanced Oil Recovery (CO2-EOR),”[26] co-written by an author list that included one who now works for Shell.[27]

One of the co-authors of that report, Vello Kuuskraa, sat on the panel promoting the rebrand in 2012 hosted by the Atlantic Council titled "How Far Can CO2 Enhanced Oil Recovery Drive Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage?"[28] Kuuskraa is the President of Advanced Resources International, an oil and gas industry consultancy whose clients have included Statoil, Southern Company, Shell, Sempra Energy, American Petroleum Institute, ConocoPhillips, BP, Total, Cheniere, Chevron, and other oil, gas, and coal industry companies.[29] The Atlantic Council is funded by companies such as BP, Eni, Tellurian, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips[30]

"In the absence of US legislative action on climate policy, there has been a shift in US policy emphasis from carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to CCUS with the 'U' for 'utilization' for EOR," a description for the event explained. "This briefing investigated current domestic carbon and oil market dynamics, examined the potential for CO2 EOR, and addressed the challenges of implementing large-scale EOR with CO2 capture and storage. It also outlined supportive policies and actions that could accelerate the integrated use of CO2 EOR and CCS."[31]

A few months after the panel, the Atlantic Council also published a paper promoting the CCUS brand. The organization titled it, "The Business Case for Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage." The paper was published by Pamela Tomski, then senior fellow for the Energy and Environment Program at the organization. Tomski was a moderator for the initial Atlantic Council panel, as well.[32]

Tomski argued in the paper that "CCUS is a business-driven path and US DOE policy that will enable private investment to flow toward projects that contribute to reductions in US oil imports and CO2 emissions, and provide an engine for economic growth and job creation." She added that, "CO2-EOR presents the only major commercial pathway, and offers a viable national strategy for CCUS."[33]

And then a year later in August 2013, Tomski and panelist Vello Kuuskraa -- co-author of the 2011 report -- wrote another Atlantic Council paper titled, "US Policy Shift to Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage Driven by Carbon Dioxide Enhanced Oil Recovery." That paper argued -- pointing to the 2011 congressional testimony by McConnell and the 2011 academic paper co-authored by Kuuskraa -- that "Absent climate-change legislation, commercial drivers are necessary to advance carbon-management approaches for large-scale fossil fuel power plants and industrial facilities."

"Given this reality, the United States has shifted its policy focus from carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies to one that emphasizes carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS)," the paper continued, going on to note that "the primary utilization opportunity in the United States is enhanced oil recovery (EOR)."[34]

Immediately after the publishing of the second paper, Tomski became a Senior Advisor Policy & Regulatory for The Americas at the Global CCS Institute,[35] an organization whose members include Aera Energy, BP, Eni, Halliburton, Occidental, Shell, and ExxonMobil, among others.[36] She served in that capacity from September 2013-March 2016[37]

Just two months before the Atlantic Council event, the Annual Conference on Carbon Capture & Sequestration rebranded as the Annual Conference on Carbon Capture Utilization & Sequestration.[38][39]

"This addition reflects a new reality: in the absence of strong climate policy, the key driver of CCS innovation is the utilization of CO2 for enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR)," wrote Judith Greenwald, then the Vice President for Technology and Innovation for the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES). "This is a little-known technique in which CO2 (usually drawn from naturally occurring underground reservoirs) is injected into declining oil fields to boost their output."[40] C2ES, headed by Bob Presciape--former Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under Obama--has a member list including BP, Cheniere, Shell, Southern Company, Duke Energy, Equinor, Dominion and PG&E.[41]

Greenwald proceeded to get a job as Deputy Director for Climate, Environment and Energy Efficiency for the U.S. Department of Energy and Senior Climate Advisor to U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.[42] Moniz is a major backer of CCUS and serves on the Board of Directors and Board of Advisors of companies aiming to profit from the scaling up of the technology.[43]

Just days before the rebranded Annual Conference on Carbon Capture Utilization & Sequestration, the U.S. Department of Energy announced it was adding "utilization" to the CCS moniker.

"The Energy Department is strategically focusing the program’s R&D toward the economic 'utilization' of captured carbon dioxide (CO2) for commercial purposes – evolving from CCS to Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage, or CCUS. By putting the captured CO2 to use, CCUS provides an additional business and market case for companies or organizations to pursue the environmental benefits of CCS.," wrote McConnell. "There are a number of emerging applications in this regard, but the major near-term opportunity is in CO2 enhanced oil recovery (EOR), or injecting CO2 into depleted oil wells to recover untapped oil."[44]

McConnell previewed the rebrand during his 2011 confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

“What we're now beginning to talk very regularly and routinely about is carbon capture utilization and storage," said McConnell. "The utilization is speaking in terms of taking that carbon dioxide and in the process of enhanced oil recovery being able to put it into geological formations to do two things: one, to be able to recover vast quantities of unrecoverable oil without the use of CO2; and in the process of recovering and enhancing that oil and getting the returns associated with it, it's also then permanently stored and sequestered."[45]

Yet, not everyone is enthusiastic about the name change.

"This frame fundamentally shifts the composition and purpose of CCS from a greenhouse gas mitigation strategy to a mechanism to commodify CO2 and extract more fossil fuels," explains a 2016 academic paper on the 2012 conference at which the rebranding effort took hold. "This frame maintains a commitment to fossil fuels, limits the climate mitigation potential of CCS, and assumes a need for increased energy production and consumption."[46]

An organizer of a different CO2 EOR conference, who has done the conferences for decades even prior to CO2 EOR being lumped in as a climate solution, notes in explaining the history of his conference that "EOR was an unavoidable by-product of the injection" and that the "storage story" is something he explained could be sold as a climate solution to the U.S. Department of Energy beginning in the early 2000's.[47]

Shift to Climate Concerns

It was not until 2007 that for the first time as an industry, Kinder Morgan CO2 Company President Charles E. Fox told the Subcommittee on Commerce, Science and Transportation of the U.S. Senate in 2007 -- in a hearing about carbon sequestration technologies -- that "I believe that industry is prepared to respond positively to society's call to find economical methods to mitigate climate change."[48]

It was a marked shift away from CO2 simply as a means to enhanced oil recovery and extend the lifeline of oil wells to one wherein the drilling process was pitched as a climate solution.

The hearing came in the context of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2008's looming circulation, legislation which promoted CCUS and CO2 EOR. That bill had a provision calling for a feasibility study on the construction of CO2 pipelines in service to CO2 EOR.[49]

At the hearing, Fox also referred to CCS as a "bridging technology," echoing language used to promote natural gas drilling in shale gas reserves across the United States.

"[S]ociety will con­tinue to need electricity. I doubt that other sources such as nuclear, solar and wind energy will completely displace coal (and natural gas) during the next half century," said Fox at the hearing. "In a world largely dependent on coal-fired electrical plants, we will need to develop a CCS program-at least as a bridging technology."[50]

CO2 EOR, Fox further explained, could serve as an entry into that "bridging."

"Injection into depleted oil and gas fields may be a first step toward injection into saline reservoirs because res­ervoir descriptions were completed for hydrocarbon recovery," Fox continued.[51]

Sequestering vs. Recycling

During the CO2 EOR process, CO2 is not merely stored underground immediately. Instead, it is recycled as part of what the Global CCS Institute describes as a "closed loop," which "reduces the need to purchase additional CO2."[52]

A closed-loop CO2 EOR system, exhibited in a 2013 NETL report.

A 1976 study commissioned by the Federal Energy Administration pointed out that, from the onset, CO2 EOR would not be economically feasible for the oil industry without recycling technology. The study explained the industry will necessitate "major improvements in...recycling...before the full potential of this recovery tech­nique can be realized."[53]

As early as 1981, a petroleum engineering coordinator for Shell told colleagues at the Society for Petroleum Engineers that CO2 for CO2 enhanced oil recovery should be recycled because it "is a very valuable commodity" and "it does involve large amounts for oil recovery."[54]

In 1991, a production supervisor at Shell at the Jackson Dome further explained, "We're recycling everything we produce. Eventually the flood will be mature enough that all we'll be doing is recycling. We won't have to bring any more down from Jackson Dome."[55]

In 2016, the U.S. Department of Interior's Office of Natural Resources Revenue also explained the CO2 EOR process as one centering around recycling in a legal ruling pertaining to disputes over royalty payments at the Bravo Dome. "At the surface, the CO2 is separated from the oil," explains the filing. "The oil is sold and the CO2 reused again in the EOR reservoir. This means the CO2 is part of a continual process and is not sold."[56]

In a 2018 presentation, Denbury further concluded that by 15 years into a CO2 EOR operation, 20% of its CO2 will be recycled. By 20 years, that number goes up to 50%. By 25 years, that number goes up to 70% and by 30 years, that number goes up to 80% recycled.[57]

The U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory put it more simply in a 2019 paper on CO2 EOR, writing, "the objective of CO2 EOR operations is not to store CO2, but to maximize oil production. However, some of the injected CO2 ultimately does get stored in the reservoir as part of the process.[58]

“The need for the field to purchase new CO2 is gradually reduced over time,” further explains a 2019 paper published by the U.S. Department of Energy. “As a result, a greater percentage of the CO2 injected is from production, separation, and recycling versus newly-purchased CO2.” That paper further explained that “approximately half has been recovered and recycled” and more broadly “CO2 EOR operators try to maximize oil and gas production and minimize the amount of CO2 left in the reservoir.”[59]

A 2010 paper by the National Energy Technology Laboratory also explains the exact money saved by doing the recycling process, writing that "Because of the cost of naturally sourced CO2—roughly $10-15 per metric ton—a CO2 flood operator seeks to recycle as much as possible to minimize future purchases of the gas."[60]

Articles and Resources

Related GEM.wiki articles

References

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