Natural-gas-and-helium plant in Wyoming would be world's largest carbon sequestration facility

Federal officials have released their draft environmental study for what could be the largest carbon-sequestration facility in the world. Denver-based Cimarex Energy Co. is "proposing to construct the large-scale carbon sequestration project as part of its Rand Butte Project along the Wyoming Range in southwest Wyoming," Jeff Gearino of the Casper Star-Tribune reports. Officials say the facility could eventually supply 30 percent of the world's helium production.

The Bureau of Land Management's environmental study, which examines the federal components of the project, including drilling of gas wells and construction of pipelines, electric transmission lines and monitoring stations, is available for public review. While carbon-sequestration has often been associated with coal, the Wyoming plant would be used in a natural gas and helium project in the Madison geologic formation.

Development of the reservoir has been hampered "by the presence of high concentrations of CO2 gas and toxic hydrogen sulfide," Gearino writes. "The project aims to test new technologies for capturing and then re-injecting all the byproduct gases — primarily CO2 and H2S — back into their source-producing formation." Wyoming was the first state to pass comprehensive carbon sequestration legislation. (Read more)