Winners and Losers in Midwest CO2 Sequestration

byJeffery Jen, Senior Analyst, Enverus Intelligence® Research
Figure 1 | Summit’s and Navigator CO2’s pipeline routes and ethanol facilities within 10 miles

Source: Figure 2 from here: https://intelligence.enverus.com/research/93907

There has been a battle for CO2 in the Midwest with two major CO2 pipeline projects, Navigator Heartland Greenway and Summit Carbon Solutions, looking to capitalize on the 45Q PTC by targeting the low capture cost CO2 emissions from the fermentation process of ethanol. With the cancellation of Navigator’s project in October 2022, Summit Carbon Solutions has been presented a unique opportunity to capitalize on the ethanol facilities that are now stranded from sequestration locations. In a recent report published by Enverus Intelligence Research, this opportunity was quantified by exploring which facilities along Navigator’s proposed pipeline also fall within Summit’s planned route. Based on this analysis, Summit could increase the number of partnered ethanol facilities by 33% and increase captured CO2 by 40%. Adding on facilities from the recently announced Poet partnership brings emissions available to Summit’s project to 18.5 mtpa. However, Summit will still have to overcome the same regulatory hurdles that caused Navigator’s cancellation, and as a result have pushed their planned in-service date to 2026. For more information, please refer to our CO2 Transportation Failure | Adversity and Opportunity for Midwest CCUS report.

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Picture of Jeffery Jen, Senior Analyst, Enverus Intelligence® Research

Jeffery Jen, Senior Analyst, Enverus Intelligence® Research

Jeffery joined Enverus Intelligence Research (EIR) in 2023 as a senior associate on the Subsurface Innovation team, part of EIR's Energy Transition Research. He focuses on emerging energy and carbon innovation technologies, drawing on his industry experience and personal passion for emerging technologies to build connections between the needs of customers and subsurface developments. Jeffery's recent work involved building economic models for CO2 transportation and CO2 use cases to provide economic insights on the entire CCS value chain. He previously worked at TC Energy as a field engineer and in pipeline integrity.

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