The relationship with agriculture and oil and gas is one that goes back to the foundation of the petroleum industry. Since day one, the two industries have had to co-exist, which is one of the main reasons oil producers call their departments that work with the surface owners “Land Departments”. Like a mission statement in a company, oil’s intention was identified with an evidence marker to remind them of the connection and co-existence.
In fact, The Crude Life’s Jason Spiess asked Continental Resources’ Chairman Harold Hamm in 2013 about his view of the relationship between Agriculture and Energy with new innovations and technology being introduced.
“First of all, those two are the premiere industries of the state and are very important here and we recognize that, especially when working with landowners,” Hamm said to Spiess in 2013. “The ecopad development has been tremendous and the lateral development minimizes surface usage and has worked very well.”
Flash forward almost a decade and we are seeing the same Hamm continuing his environmental innovations in the Bakken oil fields. Only this investment is about transporting carbon by pipeline, not oil.
“It was a significant announcement and investment for us to have Continental Resources invest $250M into the company,” said Wade Boeshans of Summit Carbon Solutions. “It signals the convergence of energy and agriculture around carbon management.”
Boeshans quickly points out the 25-years of experience Continental Resources has with the geology and underground Bakken atmosphere.
“Continental Resources and their deep understanding of the Williston Basin and the geology which is a key component of our project of proposing to capture CO2 from ethanol plants across five states aggregate that CO2 into a pipeline system and deliver it to Western North Dakota for injection and permanent geological storage.”
Continental’s professional history and track record in the Bakken is a value-added asset to Summit Carbon Solutions and the project according to Boeshans.
“This project is purely a capture and sequestration project, it does not involve oil production,” Boeshans said. “Continental, as an oil and gas producing company, recognizes the market opportunity and market demands for lower carbon while ethanol producers and oil and gas producers working towards a common goal of reducing CO2 emissions.”
Several weeks before the $250M announcement The Crude Life Content News Correspondent Ken Lavin interviewed Hamm regarding his recent donations to the Oklahoma State University and University of Mary Bismarck. During that interview, for the first time publicly, Hamm commented that oil companies need to commit to carbon solutions in energy development.
The investment into Summit Carbon Solutions symbolizes how energy companies are becoming all of the above with all the above energy, including the energies in agriculture.
“When you look at Continental and their history as a company, they’ve been leaders in innovation,” Boeshans said. “Starting with horizontal drilling and that technology and what it has meant for developing the resources in the Bakken and North Dakota. From there, multipad wells and continuing to drive increased efficiencies.”
As more and more oil and gas companies look to diversify their portfolios in blue algae, hydrogen, wind and other non-fossil fuel sourced energies, the once carbon storage niche industry is growing into a full on industry.
Although there any many methodologies in the carbon market, Boeshans explains the difference between the two main phrases of the carbon market.
“There are two different acronyms thrown around, first being CCS, which is Carbon Capture and Storage,” Boeshans said. “And then there is CCUS, which is Carbon Capture Utilization Storage. What we are doing in this project is Carbon Capture and Storage.”
Essentially the company will be capturing the CO2 from the fermenters in the ethanol plant, dehydrate it to a liquid, transport it by pipeline and inject it into the geological formations for storage.
“What we have in the Williston Basin that makes it suitable for carbon storage, is thick layers of sand and sandstone one-to-two-miles below the surface with rocks that are high permeability and ferocity with lots of capacity of fluid to be stored within them,” Boeshans said.
After the CO2 is stored a couple miles below the surface, Summit Carbon Solutions monitors the levels to ensure safe protocols are taken and leak prevention.
“There’s several techniques for monitoring CO2, one is through the use of installing subsurface gages for the detection of CO2, monitoring the formations themself,” Boeshans said. “Secondly, is through the use of 3D seismic or other kinds of surface methods where you can actually verify and monitor, and finally you’ll have to continue to monitoring on the injection well bores up and down as well as monitoring the ground water continuously for detection of any CO2 that might show up in there.”
For more information on Summit Carbon Solutions click here
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