Carbon storage hot topi in Louisiana

Carbon is described as a basic chemical element necessary for life, the backbone of all living things on earth. Oxygen is a colorless, odorless gas that is essential for life. Together they make carbon dioxide, identified as CO2, and has become controversial in some circles.

In Louisiana the controversy is in an industry of injecting CO2 thousands of feet underground. Is it safe? Are laws in place that give clear explanation of who is responsible for what and could CO2 injection wells affect the environment and oil and gas exploration?

A scientist with the Louisiana Department of Energy and Natural Resources (LDENR) says injection wells are nothing new to the state. The technology and regulations are in place that can make it as safe as possible.

A Sabine Parish forester says that from a legal standpoint, however, much is unsettled.

The injection wells, said Laura Sorey, a petroleum scientist and geology manager for the LDENR, have gained much interest of late for storing man-made carbon dioxide, usually for mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, sometimes associated with enhanced oil recovery.

As of April, she said 32 projects have applied for permits for 100 injection wells in 18 parishes. Most parishes are in south Louisiana, she said, but there are several in the west central part of the state. The locations are mostly centered on where the production of CO2 is, but "a lot also has been driven by what 's perceived as favorable geology."

"We do expect this number to grow."

Permit Process

"Deep injection well technology is something that's been operating in Louisiana for decades, and that my office has been responsible for operating or for regulating over for decades," Sorey said.

Sorey oversees injection wells in the state. A guest speaker at the CenLa Forestry Forum in Alexandria in April, explained how her department regulates the wells, including the predictably complicated and lengthy permit process.

"We, first of all, have a statutory duty as regulators to make sure the projects are safe, but also in the communities where we have these, are our communities as well. Even though our office is based in Baton Rouge, we get folks from all over Louisiana, who hail from some of the parishes where you're going to see these projects, with family in some of these parishes."

Companies wanting to establish CO2 injection wells must bring their plans to Sorey's department for evaluation, including how the CO2 is pumped underground and what substances might be included in the liquified gas. One of the most important parts of the plan is where the CO2 will be injected.

"My thing is perhaps more important than the injection zone; it's what we call the combining zone," Sorey said. "So it's all well and good if you get CO2 into the subsurface. You have to make sure it actually stays there. You have to make sure it actually stays where you want it to stay and that's where the combining zone comes in."

Combining zone is a shale or mudstone whose grains are held tightly together to keep fluids from pushing up through the formation, not allowing the CO2 to work its way up to an aquifer or the surface.

"And it's going to be really important for carbon dioxide because as you, know gases tend to be more buoyant than fluids, particularly something like CO2, which is, generally speaking, going to rest at the top of this injection zone," she said.

Once a plan is satisfactory, a draft permit can be issued; however, that doesn't mean companies can begin injecting CO2 right away. Operators have to update the plan's geology and engineering as the project advances and if changes are discovered, any problems have to be addressed.

"So we want to make sure that reality matches the predictions," she said.

Only after that, a permit to actually inject the CO2 would be issued. Companies then have to monitor the wells and remain in compliance with state regulations, providing operating, modeling and monitoring and testing data. Companies must update subsurface models every five years, along with updating financial security requirements for the lifespan of the project.

Even after injection of CO2 ceases, the wells must be monitored for the next 50 years.

"These are projects that we're never going to walk away from," Sorey said.

Dangerous Fluid

A particular danger during this process is the possibility of the mixture of carbon dioxide and water.

"Carbon dioxide, when it interacts with water, creates carbonic acid, which is going to be corrosive to all traditional oilfield materials," she said.

The inject wells can be near existing or abandoned oil and gas wells. Wells that have been capped using traditional carbon-based steel could experience corrosion that could have negative effects.

As part of the permitting process, injection operators have to proved that the materials used will be able to hold up in the presence of carbonic acid.

"That is something that we take very seriously as to make sure that we don't want to put a draft permit out there until we, as regulators, can stand behind and say, we did our due diligence, the information here is representative of what's being proposed is reasonable and it addresses the potential risks."

If carbonic acid gets into the groundwater, Sorey said remediation technologies to clean it up exist and remediation plans are part of the permitting process.

"So rather than comment, ëOh, you have this release. You pump this amount of water and treat this amount of water and then re-inject it back from fresh formation,' " she said. "We just want to make sure that they have, first of all, the financial resources to respond to that if it does happen and that they have the appropriate approach for building that work plan, working with, let's say, an environmental consultant to make sure that they can then respond to accordingly so they're using the proper remediation technology for whatever that impact might be."

Legal Complexity

Beyond the complicated permit process, the legal issue could prove to be more complex, said Danny Wells, a forester who also works with landowners on royalty issues. Who owns what is the challenge.

In Louisiana, the landowner might not have rights to the mineral servitude for oil and gas underground. Owners of the mineral servitudes will enjoy the mineral royalties once they are severed, or brought to the surface. Whoever owns the land, however, owns the subsurface pore space, the air space within the rock underground.

"It's microscopic, but it's there," Wells said. "It's unoccupied airspace."

And that space is valuable, he said, because the many geological formations in Louisiana is said to have the storage capacity of 2.3 trillion metric tons of carbon dioxide.

"Due to Louisiana's many geological formations, it's estimated that the state could have potential total storage capacity of 2.3 trillion metric tons of carbon dioxide," he said.

The complexity, he added, begins with Louisiana adhering to the American Rule Doctrine, which holds that disposal rights may not be granted until after the subsurface minerals have been depleted.

"Our problem is, currently, we have landowners who are granting CO2 disposal agreements prior to the depletion of the minerals," Wells said, "and without consulting parties with preexisting rights in the subsurface. This problem is primarily because of the Legislature and courts have not defined parties' rights, the relationship (of those rights)."

But the state adds to the problem by allowing CO2 injection well operators to exercise eminent domain through the courts.

According to R.S. 30:1108, "A.(1) Any storage operator is hereby authorized, after obtaining any permit and any certificate of public convenience and necessity from the commissioner required by this Chapter, to exercise the power of eminent domain and expropriate needed property to acquire surface and subsurface rights and property interests necessary or useful for the purpose of constructing, operating, or modifying a storage facility and the necessary infrastructure including the laying, maintaining, and operating of pipelines for the transportation of carbon dioxide to a storage facility, together with utility, telegraph, and telephone lines necessary and incidental to the operation of these storage facilities and pipelines, over private property thus expropriated."

"That's pretty darn broad," Wells said.

The eminent domain process doesn't mean landowners will lose their land, he said, but it does mean any landowner who doesn't want to negotiate can have a deal forced on them through the courts.

"So the question is, can he grant those rights without permission from the mineral servitude owner or royalty owner. Could he face civil liability for interfering with their rights, their rights to explore?"

Worthless Minerals?

Because depletion of minerals is not legally settled in Louisiana, mineral rights owners can still explore for oil and gas below the CO2 storage area, Wells said, as long as the rules are followed to protect the storage area; however, he said as of April, those rules don't exist.

"So much of this is so brand new, you just have to be cautious," he said.

"Under any rules, it's going to be extremely expensive equipment, and it would be dangerous."

Wells said the usual carbon steel pipe couldn't be used. It would require a different kind of steel, such as chromium.

"It's going to be so expensive they won't want to do it."

Many legal questions remain unanswered:

• Would a servitude owner have claim against the disposal operator or landowner for exploration without the servitude owner's permission or would servitude owner have to accommodate the disposal operator?

• Could the disposal operator discourage the landowner who owns the mineral rights from granting an oil and gas lease to avoid hindering the disposal project?

• Could the disposal project make the land burdened by mineral servitude less attractive to the lessee and make it more difficult for him to sell an oil and gas lease?

• If the mineral royalty is devalued and rendered worthless by the CO2 storage project, could the royalty owner sue the landowner and disposal operator?

• Should the disposal operator seek agreements from mineral servitude owner and royalty owner before proceeding with its project?

"So the surface owner is in a precarious position," Wells said. "Out of the four parties, they face the greatest potential liability."

He said private landowners who don't own the mineral servitude or royalty should be cautious about granting carbon disposal rights. The landowner could be sued by the mineral servitude owners and could face a breach of contract action from the disposal operator unable to proceed with its project, if permission was already granted by the landowner.

And the issue of eminent domain by disposal operators to expropriate the servitude owners rights adds to the complexity.

"In conclusion, we got a mess, folks, we got a mess."

Nothing has yet been ajudicated, Wells said; however, there is an active lawsuit in Sabine Parish that includes many of these issues.