ExxonMobil gets BLM approval for Wyoming CCS project

ExxonMobil Corp. has received US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) approval to sequester carbon dioxide (CO₂ ) under federal land in Lincoln and Sweetwater counties, Wyoming. The project, capable of sequestering 60 MMcfd, will include a CO₂ disposal well 18,000 ft underground in the water leg of the Madison formation and a pipeline connecting the disposal site to ExxonMobil’s Shute Creek natural gas plant near Kemmerer, Wyo.

Shute Creek receives gas from La Barge field in Sublette County, Wyo. Composition of the gas from La Barge is 66% CO₂, 21% methane, 7% nitrogen, 5% hydrogen sulfide, and 0.6% helium. The plant was expanded in 2010 to capture 365 MMcfd of CO₂.

ExxonMobil in February 2022 made final investment decision to further expand carbon capture and storage (CCS) at LaBarge, which it says has captured more CO₂ than any other CCS project in the world to date. The new expansion will add as much as 1.2 million tonnes/year (tpy) of CO₂ to the 6-7 million tpy already captured from LaBarge operations. 

The company completed front-end engineering and design work for the project in December 2021. Pending regulatory approvals, startup is estimated for 2025.

ExxonMobil currently sells much of the CO₂ for EOR use by other operators, with excess vented into the atmosphere under a permit approved by the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality.

The project with ExxonMobil is the first time BLM has issued a permit to allow for permanent underground storage of CO₂.