Blue Source LLC, a U.S. portfolio of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction offsets and developer of carbon capture and storage projects, said it is successfully capturing vent stack carbon dioxide (CO2) from a natural gas processing plant and flowing it to an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) site, preventing millions of cubic feet of CO2 from entering the atmosphere every day from the plant at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains near La Veta in south-central Colorado.

The emissions reduction is equivalent to removing more than 70,000 cars from the road, the company said. Prior to the start of the project, approximately 20 MMcf/d of CO2 was vented to the atmosphere. Now those gases are captured from the ventstack and travel through pipelines to be sequestered in EOR projects. Blue Source said it has an agreement to sell all of the anthropogenic CO2 and market the related GHG Verified Emission Reductions (VER) that will be produced from the project and which are necessary for the payout of the investment.

“This project prevents a significant amount of CO2 from venting into the atmosphere and will further help produce a considerable amount of domestic oil in underused oil fields,” said Russell Martin, Blue Source executive vice president. “This project demonstrates that it is indeed possible to reduce CO2 in the environment and create transferable, economic benefits in the form of VERs that will go far in supporting the investment in this project.”

No additional crude oil is produced as a result of CO2 injection from this project. The crude oil would have been produced anyway from the injection of CO2 sourced from underground CO2 reserves in southern Colorado. The Blue Lake CO2 Pipeline project began construction in 2005 and is now creating 400,000 metric tons of CO2 emission reductions each year through carbon capture and storage. It is expected that this captured volume will rise to more than 500,000 metric tons per year.

The Apple Tree natural gas processing plant in Huerfano County, CO, required a capital investment of approximately $8 million to connect the vent stack CO2 source to a CO2 transportation pipeline. The CO2 travels 16 miles to join the Sheep Mountain CO2 Pipeline, where it is to be used for EOR in the Permian Basin.

Blue Source works with businesses to identify, create, acquire and market in a portfolio the GHG emission reduction benefits. Blue Source sells GHG offsets to retail and wholesale buyers and to financial markets. Blue Source has secured under long-term sourcing agreements hundreds of millions of tons of GHG emission reduction offsets through 2022.

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