◆ Exxon looking to get on the Carbon Capture bandwagon.

A meeting with Exxon/Mobil held in Kemmerer on Thursday, December 12 has resulted in some good news, according to Kemmerer Administrator Brian Muir.

“Pam Heatherington, the Exxon/Mobil Asset Manager, was there with her staff answering questions from community stakeholders and the public about their LaBarge Carbon Capture and Utilization and Storage Project,” said Muir. “They are focusing on two ways to increase their revenue: sell more CO2 through their existing CO2 pipeline and drill a well to store the CO2 and get the associated carbon credits.”

According to Muir, the proposed project will “probably be about $300 million” and “bring in 11 permanent jobs.” There will also be approximately 160 full-time construction related jobs over a period of 29 months.
During the meeting, Kemmerer Mayor Tony Tomassi stated the town is very much in support of the proposed project.

“There is also an opportunity for Lincoln County and its southern cities to get money from Exxon/Mobil for potential impacts to our community in the area of public health and safety,” said Muir. “We met after the meeting with the Lincoln County Commissioners and the elected officials from the potentially impacted cities to discuss a joint application to obtain funding. Our overall feeling on this is that there are a lot of economic benefits that will come because there will be more people living and shopping here and using our hotels.”

Muir also asked Heatherington about “the opportunity for a potential buyer of the Naughton Power Plant to sell CO2 captured from a retrofitted plant to Exxon/Mobil.”

“She said that would be a possibility, but there would need to be a pipeline to send the CO2 from the Naughton plant to Exxon, which would then be potentially re-sold to petroleum companies in either North Dakota or Montana,” said Muir. “It is possible that Exxon/Mobil may have more CO2 than would fit in their current pipeline and that an additional pipeline might be needed once it gets to Exxon/Mobil, but they seem interested in the CO2 even under the current situation.”

According to Muir, the whole project and the possibilities associated with it comes down to dollars and cents.

“The economics behind retrofitting our plans and selling CO2 to Exxon/Mobil depends on the price of CO2 and the cost of the pipeline,” he said. “Pam Heatherington mentioned that another opportunity for the buyer of the Naughton plant would be to send the CO2 to Exxon/Mobil for storage, in which case carbon credits could be negotiated. I mentioned that if the new buyer of the plant were to be able to store the CO2 near a retrofitted Naughton Plant in a nearby well, that the buyer would probably make a higher profit on the carbon credits, and she acknowledged that made sense.”

“We also discussed that one of the biggest expenses for the Naughton Plant would be to retrofit the plant, which I understand would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars,” Muir added.

According to Muir, as energy talks continue, Kemmerer remains committed to finding workable solutions.
“We are moving ahead and trying to be optimistic with the great assets that we have here in Western Wyoming,” he said.