2021 – CO2 Conference

2021 CO2 Conference Summary

By all measures, the 2021 Conference Committee pulled off another very successful conference. The December 6-9, 2021 event was the 27^th annual conference and featured four days packed with a field trip to a modern CO₂ flood, a Tuesday and Wednesday AM agenda with updates on U.S and worldwide carbon capture storage (CCS) projects, government incentives (like 45Q) and policy updates. Wednesday afternoon was the first session ever held on the challenges of carbon capture and storage (CCS) when injecting and overpressuring reservoirs using the large volume water disposal experience of the oil and gas industry. Thursday sessions featured a number of CO₂ EOR and carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) projects. The growing number of reservoirs amenable to CCUS are rapidly growing with the recognition of the presence of residual oil zones in an expanding number of basins around the U.S. and world.

This conference showed a remarkable recovery from the Covid-challenged Conference held 12-months earlier. 200 persons were present this December for one or more days of the event and another 20 attended virtually. The year before the ratio of virtual-to-physical attendees was reversed with only 15% attending in person

The varied backgrounds of attendees has been a noted feature of this conference. Putting the right folks in the same room and reception halls has always been 50% of the objectives of the conference. This year the mix included Business Development / Financial (12 attending), Exploration / Production (82), O/G Services (52), Media / Marketing (5), Gov’t/University (23), Land/Mineral Owner (3), Research/Non-Profit (12), Environmental (9), and Consulting (27).

The vast experience of the Permian Basin’s CO₂ industry is the reason for the Conference’s location in West Texas but the audience comes from around the U.S. and world to rub shoulders with the experience represented in the audience. Fifteen internationals came to Midland, 205 were from the U.S. with 18 different States represented. Texas was first of course but with 55 attending from out-of-Texas.

A wide cross-section of the newly emerging CCS/CCUS industry was represented along with the mature CO₂ EOR industrial companies. It is clear that many new companies are beginning to form for the growing capture, transportation, and injection volumes that are being planned. The sponsoring entities of the conference are also broadening out from its legacy companies serving the CO₂ capture and EOR industries. To that end, the committee would like to recognize the sponsors here as most of which were active on the planning committee: Advanced Resources International, Arcadis, Burk Royalty, Culberson Engineering & Construction CCI), Denbury Resources, Elysian, Enhance Energy, Enhanced Oil Recovery Institute (WY), Hunt, Guillot & Associates, KinderMorgan CO₂ Company, Mitsubishi, Oxy, R K Hall and Associates, Rockall Energy, Society Petr Engineers (PB Section), Trimeric Corporation, Trinity Midstream, Vintage O/G Advisors, Visit Midland, Wackowski Consulting, and Wehner CO₂ Consulting (Caprock Carbon).

The other half of the objective of the Conference is to provide a platform for both the latest news and best practices being used in the CO₂ industry. The new ideas and practices presented each year have to pass the field trial test phase Each year it forms the basis for case history and presenter selection. Their presentations for the last 12 years are archived here and are available for download under the presentation tab. To help offset the cost of maintenance of the website, we make available all but the last conference slides for free. A nominal subscription price of $75 allows access to those latest talks.