Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
3/20/2015
A new House caucus, tasked with educating representatives about the benefits of enhanced oil recovery, was launched this week by caucus co-chairs Reps. Michael Conaway (R -Texas), Gregg Harper (R-Miss.) and Marc Veasey (D-Texas.). Veasey, a member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, said he learned of EOR during committee hearings and has become an enthusiastic supporter of the process. “It strikes a great balance between our environmental and our energy needs. The process not only helps [address] carbon emissions by storing carbon dioxide in deep underground formations but it also adds economic incentives to do that. This is market based solution which I think is really important in this particular space also. … I’m committed to finding solutions that help secure our energy future while also being good stewards of our national environment. CO2-EOR is a win-win technology for both business and the environment,” he said. “CO2-EOR has many positive opportunities and it’s just too beneficial for society to be overlooked.”
Additional awareness of the process in Congress will be beneficial to industry, Kyle Simpson, a senior advisor with the Hogan Lovells legal practice, said during the event. “The more that people understand how the CO2 is purchased, mixed with the oil and recycled and then put back into the ground is going to help us as we move on down the road. Obviously there are a lot of agendas, increased oil production storing carbon, capturing carbon from power generation and industrial processes but the resource potential of this is something that we really started looking at … a few years ago,” Simpson said.
EOR Could Drive CCS Innovation
The potential demand for CO2 as the EOR industry expands could work to provide a business case for carbon capture from energy generation and from industrial sources, Sasha Mackler, Vice President of Summit Power, said at the event. Summit is currently developing the Texas Clean Energy Project, which will employ carbon capture for use in enhanced oil recovery. “New advanced technologies for capturing CO2 from our fossil fired power plants before the emissions go into the atmosphere; these technologies are at our fingertips today. New technology can be supported and brought forward into the market by a sector that demands that CO2 in high volume … and that’s the oil industry. They know very well how to do EOR, so there’s not a lot of risk in that part of the business proposition. We also know that this CO2 can bring up an enormous quantity of new oil from oil fields that are already developed and are already producing,” he said.
