Summit Carbon Solutions, which is trying to build the largest carbon capture pipeline in the United States to transport and bury greenhouse gases, has repeatedly pledged that its project will not be used by drillers to boost production from oilfields.
But Summit has a different message for prospective customers, including North Dakota's oil sector, according to a Reuters review of state regulatory filings and recordings of public appearances by company officials: If you want to use our enhanced recovery project oil recovery (EOR), where gas is pumped into oil fields to increase production, just write a check.
The dual messages demonstrate Summit's efforts to garner broad support for the $5.5 billion project, which would capture up to 18 million metric tons of CO2 annually from 57 Midwest ethanol plants and store it underground at a site in North Dakota. Part of the pipeline will cross southern Minnesota.
Whether Summit achieves its goal of breaking ground in 2025 and becoming operational in 2026 is an important test of carbon capture and storage, a key tool in the fight against climate change but facing hurdles such as unproven scalability and public concern.
The ethanol industry wants Summit to sequester its carbon to reduce carbon intensity and draw lucrative tax credits from state and federal clean fuel programs.
But the oil industry wants to use the pipeline for EOR, reflecting the belief of drillers in North Dakota's Bakken that oil recovery is necessary to reverse the once-booming region's flagging production. North Dakota oil players launched the group Friends of Ag and Energy in December to promote coal pipelines like Summit's, including through thousands of dollars in radio ads.
With the Summit project, “the potential is there, the size of the award in the Bakken is significant, and ultimately I see a tremendous long-term opportunity,” Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council (NDPC), told Reuters.
The summit has been held for a long time, in both sworn testimony to state pipeline regulators and on her websitethat it does not intend to use its work for EOR.
“The Summit Carbon Solutions project will not be used for enhanced oil recovery,” the website states. “Summit does not intend to ship CO2 for use in EOR,” the company told the Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) last August.
But more recently, Summit officials have indicated that using the pipeline to transport coal to boost oil production is a future possibility.
“Today, we don't have shippers that want to send CO2 for EOR. When that changes, we'll probably move it for that purpose,” Wade Boeshans, executive vice president of Summit, said at a Dec. 20 event hosted by Friends Ag and Energy in Bismarck, ND
Summit attorney Bret Dublinske told IUB in a Jan. 19 filing that the company “does not ultimately control” whether future customers would use the pipeline for EOR.
And Bruce Rastetter, president of Summit's parent company, Summit Agricultural Group, also said on a Feb. 7 North Dakota radio show that the company is open to EOR.
Environmental groups generally oppose EOR because of its potential to extend the life of the fossil fuel industry.
Summit CEO Lee Blank said the company's messaging on EOR is consistent.
“The core focus of this company is the ethanol industry and carbon sequestration, and that will be it until the market tells us to do something different,” he said.
The company is also contractually obligated to sequester all the carbon it sequesters at ethanol plants that have signed on with the company, Blank said.
North Dakota oil production peaked at the end of 2019 after a nearly decade-long drilling boom that made it one of the nation's top crude oil suppliers and has yet to recover, according to Energy Information Administration data.
The state will need up to 10 times more CO2 than it can sequester from fixed sources to release billions of barrels of oil trapped in the Bakken fields, said John Harju, vice president for strategic partnerships at the University of North Dakota's Center for Energy and Environment. . .
“Pilling in CO2 is something that I think at the end of the day is going to be necessary,” Harju said.
Summit has faced setbacks in securing state permits, including in North Dakota, and land easements from some landowners along its route due to safety, land rights and environmental concerns.
In an effort to build public support, Friends of Ag and Energy advertised on six North Dakota radio stations from early December through February, according to records maintained by the Federal Communications Commission. Invoices show that in December the group paid a total of $16,366 for 487 ads on the six stations. Invoices for other months were not available.
The group's president, Kathleen Neset, is a North Dakota petroleum consultant and board member of the North Dakota Petroleum Council. Neset did not respond to an interview request.
Its parent organization, Primus Inc., counts influential figures in the state oil industry as board members and donors, according to the group's public filings.
Summit's current focus on sequestration is due in part to its 45-quarter tax credit program, extended by the Inflation Reduction Act, which offers $85 per ton of sequestered coal and just $50 per ton for EOR.
A change in that policy could change the company's priorities around EOR, executives and oil industry players said.
