SIERRA CLUB WARNS OF POTENTIAL FOR WELL BLOWOUTS AT HECA

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
8/23/13

The Sierra Club is warning that recent well blowouts tied to enhanced oil recovery operations in Mississippi could be a possibility if regulators greenlight the $4 billion, 390 MW Hydrogen Energy California project west of Bakersfield, Calif. In a letter to the California Energy Commission—the state regulatory body that is accepting public comments ahead of issuing a final staff assessment on the project—Sierra Club Staff Attorney Andrea Issod highlighted a more than $660,000 fine Denbury Resources was forced to pay last month following a 2011 well blowout in Mississippi. Issod said California regulators should seek more information from Occidental Petroleum Corp., the project’s CO2 offtaker, about its plans to mitigate potential blowouts from plugged and abandoned wells in its Elk Hills oilfield, which will be injecting CO2 captured at HECA for EOR operations. “There are over 1,000 wells that penetrate the reservoir within the project area where [Occidental] proposes to inject the carbon dioxide from the HECA plant… [California regulators] must require a thorough examination of all of the abandoned and capped wells around the proposed injection site, including an analysis of age, well integrity and cap integrity, track record and the reliability of well records,” Issod wrote. 

Issod said that Occidental has in the past relied on old records to support its argument that abandoned and inactive wells will not provide leakage pathways for CO2 at Elk Hills. But she said regulators should seek more up to date data before issuing HECA a construction permit. Occidental “has not adequately responded to [California Energy Commission] staff and the [preliminary staff assessment] does not contain sufficient background information, proposed conditions, analysis of alternatives or mitigation that would ensure that the well failures happening in Mississippi and Louisiana cannot occur in Kern County,” Issod said.

In an interview this week, Issod said that while regulators noted the potential for well blowouts in their preliminary staff assessment, the report was written before the fines on Denbury were levied in Mississippi. “I wanted to let them know about what happened in Mississippi because it would inform their analysis. Well blowouts do happen, and I wanted to raise this issue early on and let them know that this is an unresolved issue and that they need to request additional information,” she said. Occidental declined to comment and a HECA spokesperson said project officials are currently not responding publicly to third-party comments. “We will be responding to the open issues and requests for more information and clarifications within the context of the formal regulatory review process and within the regulatory deadlines,” the spokesperson said. he California Energy Commission will be holding joint public workshops with DOE next month related to the draft assessment. Released last month, that report concluded that HECA faces “significant, and for the most part, unresolved issues,” and raised concerns related to 15 technical areas, including water use, waste, biological resources and greenhouse gas emissions.