Wyoming minerals committee hears push to revive CO2 enhanced oil recovery; drafts two incentive bills

Wyoming’s Joint Minerals Committee on Tuesday heard industry and state experts urge renewed incentives for carbon‑dioxide enhanced oil recovery (CO2 EOR), and the committee voted to draft two bills aimed at encouraging new CO2‑EOR projects.

The committee heard technical and financial testimony from Lon Whitman, director of the Enhanced Oil Recovery Institute (ERI); Tom Kropatch, oil and gas supervisor at the Wyoming Oil and Gas Commission; and Pete Obermueller, president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming. After discussion, members instructed staff to draft language to (1) amend last session’s Senate File 17 to add a $5‑per‑ton state incentive to favor CO2 sales for EOR over permanent geological storage and (2) reintroduce a time‑limited severance tax exemption modeled on House Bill 54 (2003) for new CO2‑EOR projects covering 2026–2031.

Why it matters: supporters said the changes would lower operators’ upfront capital barriers for multi‑hundred‑million‑dollar Greenfield projects, accelerate local employment and sales‑tax receipts, and keep Wyoming competitive for capture projects and pipeline development now that federal 45Q tax credits provide parity between EOR and dedicated storage.

Lon Whitman summarized technical background and incentives. He told the committee, “We’re not aware of any aquifer damage ever in Wyoming,” and stressed that Wyoming CO2 EOR work has used conventional reservoirs that are not hydraulically fractured. Whitman said federal 45Q credit…