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Wasatch Plateau Fact Sheet: Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage Project

Company/Alliance: South West Partnership (SWP), New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, University of Utah, Schlumberger and Los Alamos National Laboratory

Location: Gordon Creek Field, Wasatch Plateau, Utah, USA

Start Date: 2012: No news of project starting to date

Size: 1 Mt/yr

CO2 Source: Natural CO2 at Farhnam Dome (A reservoir at shallower horizon from the injection horizon at the same site)

Storage: Stacked saline reservoir: The Jurassic Entrada Formation and Navajo sandstone

Motivation/Economics:

Total cost: $90 million; DOE share 80% ($67 million).

The aims of the SWP phase 3 project are: An initial estimation of the storage capacity of the Entrada Formation's saline reservoirs, risk assessment efficacy, mitigation and reservoir engineering design, water management, and as a blueprint for future commercial sequestration.

Comments:

Southwest Regional Partnership (SWP) is one of the US Regional Partnerships. The SWP is researching into the capacity of the regionally extensive Jurassic Entrada Sandstone. SWP is going to be testing out multi-zone injection of CO2 into different horizons of both the Navajo and the Entrada Sandstones. The injection site at Thunderbird Energy's Gordon Creek field is an active gas field. The CO2 which will be used for injection and is obtained from a shallower horizon from the injection site and it is over 98% pure CO2.

There is an alternative injection site: Rock Springs in SW Wyoming. The test site is an uplift anticline and the target sandstone would again be the Jurassic Entrada and Navajo Formations and the Pennsylvanian Weber Sandstone. These two options have very similar geological attributes but differ in the CO2 sources availability. The short term liability is defined for the Wyoming site but long term liability is not defined for either Utah or Wyoming.

August 2011: Thunderbird Energy and the SWP started field operations as part of phase 3 activities. This phase will demonstrate proof of concept technologies for the potential commercialization of CO2 storage.

Deliverables

Validating testing: 2005-2009

Project length: 3 year preliminary injection is planned

Project Link: SWP Partnership project web page

Other Sources and Press Releases:
SWP Presentation Phase 3: Deployment Phase DO2 annual review [PDF] (2011)
SWP presentation slides. RSCP annual meeting Pittsburgh (October 2010)
Recovery funds to help study sequestration in Colorado (April 2009)
Will CO2 Drilling in Southern Utah Solve Global Warming? (February 2007)
CO2 capture tests move forward (October 2007)