Carbon capture and storage

Exxon Plans Carbon Capture Project in Wyoming

ExxonMobil is planning to build and operate a carbon capture facility in southwest Wyoming, according to a permit application filed with the state's environmental regulatory agency in January.

Shute Creek carbon capture demonstration plant
ExxonMobil has filed an application with the Wyoming Industrial Siting Council for a permit to construct and operate the LaBarge Carbon Capture Project in Wyoming. The company's Shute Creek commercial demonstration plant in Wyoming is pictured.
Credit: ExxonMobil.

ExxonMobil is planning to build and operate a carbon capture facility in southwest Wyoming, according to a permit application filed with the state's environmental regulatory agency in January.

The proposed $262-million project includes plans for a new carbon dioxide disposal well, a 9-mile CO2 pipeline and capture equipment at the Shute Creek gas plant in Lincoln County and at the CO2 Sales Facility in nearby Sweetwater County.

The gas processing plant and CO2 Sales Facility are on land owned by Texas-based Exxon, but the CO2 disposal well and pipeline would be on Bureau of Land Management property, according to the filing.

Exxon—which says it has cumulatively captured more CO2 than any other company— said it hopes to start construction on the LaBarge Carbon Capture Project later this year and finish by the end of 2022. The project seeks to capture low-pressure, low-quality CO2 currently being vented and compress it to sales quality or inject it into the SC 5-2 disposal well.

Julie King, an Exxon spokeswoman, said the company has launched a variety of efforts—across engineering and design, permitting, and other planning applications—to expand carbon capture at the LaBarge natural gas processing facilities in southwest Wyoming.

"The estimated $300 million expansion includes the installation of vessels and compressors to increase the supply of sales quality carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery and other industrial uses and an excess gas injection well," King wrote in an email.

She did not respond to a question about Exxon's definition of safe and secure long-term storage.

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