Oklahoma's Oil Fields Could Be Key to Remedy Carbon Emissions

Positioned between acres of rolling fields near Shidler, Oklahoma, are twin white hoop barns and industrial machinery. The Bantam site, opened by carbon capture company Heimdal in August, uses crushed limestone to passively absorb carbon dioxide, strip away the gas in a 2,000-degree kiln, and reuse the rock.

The site is the largest direct air capture facility in the U.S., with plans to divert 5,000 tons of carbon annually. But it may not retain that title for years to come.

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Carbon capture facilities are being proposed nationwide as federal incentives for the practice expand and industries seek avenues for limiting their emissions.

The Bantam project works with CapturePoint, an oil and gas company that injects carbon dioxide to bring fossil fuels to the surface through enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in the North Burbank oil field in Osage County. The company makes up a significant portion of the Osage Minerals Council’s daily production, according to Chairman Myron Red Eagle. The council owns the rights to minerals and receives an income from oil and gas production in the county.CapturePoint plans to explore ways to store carbon underground without extracting fossil fuels. The company is a partner of the proposed Oklahoma Carbon Hub, a project led by researchers at the University of Oklahoma and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Heimdal’s Bantam site is one potential client of the hub.

An $18.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will fund the study.

Work on project could begin later in 2025

While the Bantam project captures carbon directly from the atmosphere, the carbon hub aims to eventually capture the greenhouse gas before it’s emitted and inject it into geological formations underground.

"We know that these storage tanks have held these fluids within the subsurface for millions of years because the oil and natural gas that we are drilling and producing from has been down there for that long," said Matthew Pranter, director of the OU School of Geosciences.

The carbon hub’s exploration of three sites in Osage and Kay counties will measure the potential for injecting 54 million metric tons of carbon over 20 years. The project was announced in November, and the group will negotiate plans with the Energy Department. The work could start later this year, Pranter said.

The grant is part of more than a decade of large federal investments to advance carbon sequestration technology. According to the Congressional Budget Office, financial support for carbon capture research totaled $5.3 billion from 2011 to 2023.

Companies also receive an $85 tax credit for every ton of carbon stored, an increase from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Under enhanced oil recovery, companies get $60 per ton. CapturePoint Founder and CEO Tracy Evans said the benefit is critical to carbon capture and storage.

"There would be very little, if any, CO2 captured, except for what makes sense for EOR without the tax credit," he said.

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Although President Donald Trump indicates he plans to peel back pro-environment policies, Evans said the carbon tax credit is likely safe.

"It's gone from (a) Republican administration, the Democratic administration, it's always been bipartisan," he said. "The likelihood of that one changing is probably pretty slim."

Carbon injection has been used for fossil fuel extraction since the 1970s, and many oil and gas companies are now investing in the practice with expanded incentives, including in Oklahoma.

Critics of carbon capture and storage say the industry isn’t a solution to climate change but a delay in phasing out fossil fuels. As carbon capture facilities are increasing, so are global emissions, according to data from NASA.

An Oklahoma chapter of the environmental lobby group Sierra Club is watching carbon developments in the state. Director Kara-Joy McKee said a certain level of carbon sequestration technology is necessary to offset the accumulation of the gas.

"I feel both hopeful that this could be some really good efforts, but also cautious, because we have seen carbon capture used to offset oil and gas production, sometimes to even make it easier to do more of that," she said.

Some sites, like Bantam, use fossil fuels to power the facilities. Site manager Lonnie Hicks said the kiln used to heat carbon-capturing limestone is powered by natural gas.

"In the future, we're going to try to look for other solutions that are better for the environment," Hicks said. "But right now, we're capturing more CO2 than we're putting out."

The direct air capture facility is “an imperfect solution,” said Hicks.

Investing in underground carbon storage is just one part of climate mitigation, said Katherine Romanak, professor of geosciences at the University of Texas and researcher with the Gulf Coast Carbon Center. All solutions and technologies are needed to lessen the effects of climate change, she said."It is urgent," she said. "It's hard for me to understand anyone coming up against this technology because if you know the urgency of the problem, and if you are aware of how far away we are from actually getting our goals, then you would not be coming up against any technology."

It’s still uncertain whether injecting carbon underground will cause a significant drawdown in global pollution, but the researchers are hopeful.

"It's kind of more of a realistic type of an approach," said Pranter. "We all want to reduce our impact on the environment, and we will through time. But until that happens, what are some of the things we could do to help out?"

Scientists with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change write the potential for carbon capture and storage is “considerable.” Still, the global climate body states companies must ensure their infrastructure is safe.

Underground injection can result in induced earthquakes, a risk the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Oklahoma Geological Survey will study during the Oklahoma Carbon Hub project. Pranter said a web of sensors would keep tabs on the sites."We're going to install as many as 30 seismic sensors to monitor seismicity in the area," he said. "We're going to be acquiring a lot of additional data to characterize the subsurface."

The risk assessment also will consider potential leakage from the wells, Pranter said, that could impact shallow aquifers and drinking water.

In January, Osage News reported CapturePoint withdrew an application with the federal Environmental Protection Agency to inject carbon below ground independently of the Energy Department grant study.

CapturePoint’s Evans said the agency required more information about the geologic formations below ground, including its risk of seismicity. Another application could be submitted in the coming months or next year, he said.

Evans and Pranter said the withdrawal does not change its project to study potential injection sites.

"This is kind of a unique area within the state in north central Oklahoma and Osage and the eastern part of Kay counties where there's actually been less seismicity recorded in this particular area than the surrounding areas," Pranter said.

In Shidler, Hicks said some nearby residents have inquired about the conspicuous hoops settled in the rural fields and pasture. In a moment between directing engineers and processing several tons of limestone, he said he welcomes the curiosity about the emerging technology.

"It just sounds intimidating because it's not something that's been done in this area or anywhere else in Oklahoma," he said. "So the more we get the community to know about what we're doing and why we're doing it, I think that's going to help them understand why it's necessary."

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