Input Stories

In an NAM-backed move, the Environmental Protection Agency has issued permits allowing ExxonMobil Corp. to turn three existing test wells in Jefferson County, Texas, into injection wells for geologic carbon sequestration (Oil & Gas Journal).

What’s going on: Last week, the energy firm “received three final Underground Injection Control (UIC) Class VI permits… advancing the operator’s Rose carbon storage project,” more than 13,000 acres of private land where the company would store and transport captured carbon dioxide.

• The permits allow ExxonMobil to inject an average of 1.1 million to 1.67 million metric tons per year of carbon dioxide into each well, with a maximum total of 5 million metric tons a year into all three wells.

Why it’s important: “Industries across the United States are investing substantially in CCS [carbon capture and sequestration] to decarbonize their operations and produce more sustainable products,” the NAM told EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin in July in support of granting the Rose project the permits.

• “In Texas, these projects have the potential to contribute $1.5 billion to the Texas economy and create 7,500 full-time, high-paying jobs.”

The last word: “Permitting and deploying Class VI wells is vital to the success of CCS technologies,” the NAM posted on X on Tuesday.

• “The NAM called for granting Class VI primacy to the state of Texas, and with these new permits, [the EPA] is delivering for manufacturers.”