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Private operators, university and SITLA push central-Utah carbon sequestration hub plan
Summary
Urban Oil & Gas and University of Utah researchers described a proposal to store hundreds of millions of tons of CO2 in Navajo Sandstone pore space on SITLA-managed lands, saying the site is geologically suitable and could anchor regional CO2 pipeline corridors; developers requested regulatory and legislative support to drill demonstration wells.
Matt Kirby, president of Urban Oil and Gas, and Michael Schneider, the company—s director of subsurface, told the Natural Resources committee the company has secured a pore-space lease with the School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA) and is pursuing a commercial sequestration hub in central Utah. Kirby said the combination of geology, existing natural-gas infrastructure and nearby large CO2 emitters makes the area a strong candidate for large-scale geologic storage.
Schneider told the committee the Navajo Sandstone target is in the —Goldilocks zone— for sequestration: suitable depth (several thousand feet), proven trapping capacity from natural analogs and adequate porosity and permeability. He said university studies and decades of gas operations in the region support feasibility. Urban Oil and Gas and University of Utah partners have obtained a Rocky Mountain CarbonSAFE award and negotiated a pore-space lease with SITLA; the company said estimates of storage capacity in the region range into the hundreds of millions to more than a billion tons.
The presenters said the project would link nearby industrial CO2 sources with storage via pipeline corridors that could re-use existing natural-gas rights-of-way, reducing permitting complexity. They said the hub would create a long-term revenue stream for SITLA through pore-space leasing and could secure federal match and tax-credit revenue if developers and Congress finalize implementing rules and incentives.
The presenters asked for legislative and regulatory support to drill the first demonstration wells, to coordinate state regulatory primacy for carbon storage, and for incentives (cost-matching or tax-credit supplements) that other states have used to spur industrial capture projects. They said a successful first well and confirmed injectivity and containment would unlock private and federal investment. University of Utah and private-sector partners said they will continue technical work and outreach.
No committee vote was taken. Several committee members thanked the presenters and said they appreciated the potential for job and revenue growth in rural Utah.
