CCS Project Database
Company/Alliance: ConocoPhilips and Denbury
Location: Fremont County, Wyoming, USA
Start Date: 2013
Size: 0.9 Mt/yr
CO2 Source: Oil and natural gas seperation
Transportation: 374 km onshore Denbury pipeline
Oil Field EOR Storage Site: Denbury's Belle Creek oil field in southeast Montana.
Injection Depth: 4500 am depth.
Reservoir Type: Muddy Formation Sandstone
Comments: Denbury pipeline was completed construction in January 2012 at a cost of $400 million. It is estimated that the EOR project will increased oil production by 1200-7000 barrels per day.
Since its 1967 discovery in the Powder River Basin of southeastern Montana, the Bell Creek oil field has produced approximately 133 million barrels (MMbbl) of oil. Most of that oil was produced by injecting water into the oil-bearing zone to push oil to production wells. By 2010, about 38% of the oil was produced and production was dwindling.
In 2010, Denbury acquired the Bell Creek Field with the intention of rejuvenating the once robust field by switching from water injection to CO2 injection. Bell Creek is an optimal site for CO2 EOR because experience has shown successful primary and secondary oil recovery using water. Even more oil recovery is expected using CO2, yielding an additional 35 million barrels of incremental oil. The rock layers in the field are also ideally suited for carbon storage following the oil recovery process.
The injection site is the Bell Creek Integrated CO2-EOR and Storage Project, a collaboration between Denbury and the Plains CO2 Reduction (PCOR) Partnership to develop robust, practical, and targeted support programs to study incidental CO2 storage associated with a commercial-scale EOR operation.
The Lost Cabin Gas Plant began operation separating and capturing CO2 from natural gas produced from a deep reservoir in the nearby Madden field in the spring of 1995. It was originally operated by Louisiana Land and Exploration, a wholly owned subsidiary of Burlington Resources.
Project Link: Denbury Resources operations
Other Sources and Press Releases:
PCOR website: The Bell Creek Integrated EOR and CO2 Storage Project
