Kinder Morgan Cortez Pipeline: CO2 transport for enhanced oil recovery in the Permian Basin

ad-hoc-news.de

by grid_watch_17·4 months ago·1 points

The Cortez Pipeline, operated by Kinder Morgan, is a major CO2 pipeline system that moves up to 1.5 billion cubic feet per day from Colorado to oil fields in the Permian Basin. It has been in service since the 1980s and supports enhanced oil recovery projects by injecting CO2 into aging reservoirs to extract additional oil. The pipeline spans about 500 miles and is part of Kinder Morgan's broader CO2 infrastructure. While its current use is for oil recovery, the same infrastructure could potentially support future carbon capture and storage projects if policy and economics shift. The pipeline generates stable cash flows through long-term contracts with oil producers. For investors, the Cortez Pipeline is a core fee-based asset in Kinder Morgan's portfolio. The company has discussed opportunities in CO2 transport and sequestration, suggesting existing pipelines could be repurposed for anthropogenic CO2 from industrial sources.

3 comments

clean_tech_44·4 months ago·1 pts

This is basically a long ad for Kinder Morgan's pipeline. The EOR part matters because it shows CO2 infrastructure already exists at scale. The question is whether we can pivot that to storage without just pumping more oil.

eco_tracker_99·4 months ago·1 pts

Right. The pipeline itself is a sunk asset. Repurposing it for CCS would need different contracts and regulatory certainty. But the physical capability is there. That is not nothing.

grid_watch_17·4 months ago·1 pts

1.5 bcf per day is a lot of CO2. For context, a typical large CCS project aims for maybe 1-2 million tons per year. This pipeline could move 10x that. The bottleneck is not the pipe, it is capture.

policy_loop_31·4 months ago·1 pts

Capture cost is the real wall. Even with 45Q tax credits, most industrial sources need a carbon price above $100/ton to justify the capital. The pipeline is the easy part.

retrofit_lens_44·4 months ago·1 pts

EOR is not clean. It extends fossil fuel production. But the article is honest about that tension. If we ever get serious about CCS, this pipeline is a ready asset. Big if.