They were attending the CO2 Conference, which was started 20 years ago to share ideas among the local fraternity of oil people using carbon dioxide to revive aging reservoirs.
The reviving of aging reservoirs covers those doing CO2 EOR, a process which leaves a lot of the gas in the ground.
It is reasonable to ask what those people are seeing that makes this tool real.
Occidental has said its goal is to be a leader in the field, with plans to build a series of facilities to capture CO2 from the air.
Last year, it bought Kinetrex which produces renewable natural gas by upgrading the methane emitted from landfills, as well as capturing a significant amount of CO2.
That could rise to $50 and $85 if a massive spending bill now before the US Senate is passed, which is far from certain.
For investors, the point of interest is the language in the bill that would allow direct payment to those who earned the credit.
At this point, this is a largely American story.
Europe ranks second with three operating and 35 under development, said Christina Staib, the senior engagement lead for the Global CCS Institute in Houston.
No country has the incentives offered by the US, but the level of credits now in the law will only cover the cost of easy-to-capture gas, Godec said.
It isn’t all rosy for project developers, who also need to worry about the volatile price of oil, new processing technology, geologic uncertainties, and the future price of carbon dioxide—which is anyone’s guess.
“We would be a carbon-neutral project by 2030,” said John Harju, vice president for strategic partnerships at the Energy and Environment Research Center at the University of North Dakota.
It was a jolt, but it turns out it is not an impossible goal for a state with a multipronged approach to maximizing the value of its oil and coal industries.
They and other producers also face a far larger challenge—offsetting the impact of the carbon emissions when the oil is used.
An example of how they are offsetting carbon emissions is the Red Trail Ethanol Plant CCS project.
Project evaluation work on the Red Trail project began in 2016.
The presentation by Connors included a slide that showed how North Dakota addressed those questions with landowners.
With a gas processing plant, it can presume the owner will be around at the end of the term to renegotiate or end the agreement, but no company lasts forever.