Aerial Photo of Wabash plant & well site

Project Description

This project will establish the feasibility of developing a commercial-scale (~50 million metric tons) geological carbon dioxide (CO₂) storage complex at the Wabash Valley Resources facility near Terre Haute, Indiana. The former Wabash integrated gasification combined cycle plant at this location has been repurposed as an ammonia production facility and will serve as the primary source of CO₂ for the storage complex. The Mt. Simon sandstone is expected to be the primary storage reservoir; this and other potential storage reservoir(s) and sealing units at the prospective site will be characterized by a two-year data acquisition program that includes drilling and testing a new stratigraphic test well, core and fluid sample collection/analysis, and a two-dimensional seismic survey over the area. The resulting datasets will be analyzed and the storage complex will be modeled to determine the site’s storage capacity, long-term storage security, and ability to receive CO₂ at the required rate. The project team will prepare a detailed plan for future commercialization of the storage complex and evaluate options for utilization of CO₂ from the Wabash facility for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in the Illinois East Basin.

Project Benefits

This project will address the development gap in upscaling carbon capture and storage (CCS) to commercial-scale (~50 million metric tons) as there are still are relatively few large carbon storage projects globally using deep saline reservoirs. It will allow improved storage capacity estimates to attain an industry standard of plus or minus 30 percent or better for investment decisions. The data from this study will be used within the National Risk Assessment Partnership Toolkits to move toward validating technologies to ensure storage permanence and to improve reservoir storage efficiency. The project will also determine the potential for transporting and utilizing CO₂ for EOR in oil fields of the Illinois Basin and demonstrate the transfer of technology to ammonia production facilities, thereby broadening the portfolio of industries that may benefit from integrating CCS into their operations. The knowledge gained will contribute to greater development of regional CCS assets and address non-technical issues that will be useful to other sites and future commercialization efforts.

Predecessor Project(s):

• FE0029445

Presentations, Papers, and Publications

• Final Briefing: Wabash CarbonSAFE (May 2022)
  Presented by Christopher Korose, Illinois State Geological Survey, May 19, 2022 (Virtual)
• Wabash CarbonSAFE (Sep 2020)
  Presented at DOE-NETL’S 2020 Integrated Project Review Meeting - Carbon Storage
• Wabash CarbonSAFE (Aug 2019)
  Presentation at 2019 Carbon Capture, Utilization, Storage, and Oil and Gas Technologies Integrated Review Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA
• Wabash CarbonSAFE (Nov 2018)
  Presentation at Project Kickoff Meeting, November 6, 2018

Contact Information