Oil producers seek CO2

Wyoming oil producers desperately want to divert streams of greenhouse gas currently being vented into the atmosphere and pump them into aging oil fields for permanent storage.

The producers' main goal may not be rooted in concerns over climate change. Nonetheless, the capture and storage of carbon dioxide -- the main greenhouse gas contributing to climate change -- is key to reviving oil production for the next 30 years and beyond in Wyoming.

The Wyoming Enhanced Oil Recovery Institute estimates that some 20 trillion cubic feet of CO2 could be sequestered in Wyoming's oil basins. The institute held a forum in Casper Tuesday, bringing together those who produce CO2 and those who want CO2 for enhanced oil recovery.

"CO2 is deathly expensive here," said John Dobitz, senior vice president of Rancher Energy Corp.

Rancher Energy will embark on a CO2 enhanced oil recovery project in the Big Muddy and South Glenrock fields just east of Casper, where it expects to recover an additional 10 percent to 15 percent of the original oil in place.

Oil production in Wyoming has declined at an annual rate of about 5.4 percent since 1991, according to the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. Some 58 million barrels of oil were produced in the state in 2000, marking the state's lowest level of oil production since 1954.

In many oil fields, as much as 60 percent of the original oil reserve remains unproduced after conventional, low-pressure recovery methods. In enhanced oil recovery, alternate flows of water and CO2 are pumped into an oil reservoir, sweeping additional volumes of oil to production wells.

After several years of "CO2 flooding" at the Salt Creek field in central Wyoming, Anadarko Petroleum helped stop Wyoming's annual 5 percent decline in oil production in 2006.

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