The Bureau of Land Management announced last week that it is providing an energy developer with limited access to a rural Montana site proposed for a large-scale carbon sequestration project.
In a July 31 press release, BLM Montana/Dakotas State Director Sonya Germann said the move will give Denbury Carbon Solutions, a subsidiary of oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp., more information about the viability of a proposal to inject 150 million tons of climate-warming carbon dioxide a mile underground.
After details of the Snowy River project emerged in February of 2024, residents of Carter County (population 1,399) raised concerns about the project’s impact on underground water supplies, county roads, grazing leases and wildlife habitat. Some also expressed dubiousness about whether the project would deliver on its promise of “safely injecting carbon dioxide — the most common greenhouse gas — deep underground, permanently preventing it from entering the atmosphere.”
“We’ve heard the public’s concerns, and we’re acting on them,” Germann said in the BLM release. “This decision allows for critical data gathering without advancing the full project at this time. It’s a step that ensures transparency and continued dialogue.”
Although Montana policymakers have discussed the utility of capturing and sequestering CO2 for decades, the Snowy River project is the first proposal in the Treasure State poised to advance.
That’s because a constellation of changes to tax codes and federal policies aligned to pique the interest of companies like Denbury, which Exxon Mobil purchased in 2023 for $5 billion. Denbury has an extensive network of CO2 pipelines, many of which help squeeze a little more oil out of underperforming wells in a process dubbed “enhanced oil recovery.”
Although President Donald Trump’s executive actions and the One Big Big Beautiful Bill Act — the massive budget bill Trump signed into law last month — have reversed many of the climate policies that federal policymakers adopted during Biden’s presidency, a tax credit that gives companies like Exxon Mobil an incentive to sequester carbon dioxide gas below ground survived the climate solution reduction. The budget bill revised the tax code to further incentivize the installation of CO2 pipelines: enhanced oil recovery projects are set to become more profitable for companies like Denbury.
RELATED
Climate fix or pollution pipeline?
A company owned by ExxonMobil is eyeing one of Montana’s least-populated counties for a carbon dioxide sequestration project. Backers say such projects are necessary to steer the globe away from the worst impacts of climate change, but Carter County residents have questions.
Under the “45Q” framework, the federal government will shave $85 off a company’s tax bill for each ton of carbon dioxide it injects underground in a project like Snowy River. If Exxon Mobil can develop its project as it is envisioned, drilling 15 wells a mile or more underground to put 150 million tons of CO2 into mostly federally managed “pore space,” the 45Q credit could help Exxon Mobil reduce its tax bill by nearly $13 billion.
Lentil farmer and Willard resident Wade Sikorski wrote in an email to Montana Free Press that he’s “dismayed” at the federal government’s continued interest in the project, particularly after the White House discontinued support for small clean energy installations.
“I am outraged that Trump is taking away subsidies from ordinary people like me to fund personal energy independence while doubling down on subsidies for large corporations to prop up fossil fuel,” said Sikorski, a renewable energy enthusiast who installed solar panels on his property. “The project in Carter County would not exist but for government subsidies, and the purpose of it is to greenwash the threat that fossil fuels pose to future generations.”
Carter County Museum curator and paleontologist Nathan Carroll said he and other residents spent much of this year in a holding pattern. That holding pattern appears to have broken.
“Because it had been crickets for a while, I think it was fingers crossed that this administration would not be supporting the tax credits that would encourage this type of sequestration project,” he told MTFP. “But I think we’re finding out that’s not the case.”
Carroll added that local opposition to the project has only increased as more community members hear about the experiences of people living in areas where Denbury has active carbon sequestration and enhanced oil recovery projects.
Denbury and the BLM have provided few details about the project and its financial components, Carroll said. Carter County residents haven’t been given straight answers about how much money the federal government stands to make for leasing its “pore space” or the details of the site geology, he said.
“The cross-section of the area that’s in this information packet is cartoonishly simple,” Carroll said. “It’s just a big arch that sort of says, ‘this is what an anticline is.’ Nothing is to scale.”
The dissolution of the carbon sequestration holding pattern Carroll referenced isn’t confined to the Snowy River project. Government agencies are ramping up the permitting process for carbon sequestration projects at both the federal and state level.
On July 31, the same day the BLM issued its announcement about the Snowy River test well, the U.S. Environmental Protection Act announced that it is distributing $12 million in funding for states and tribal governments to “develop underground injection control programs that protect sources of drinking water while supporting industry and energy projects.”
Although Montana has not joined a handful of other states in receiving authorization to administer its own Class VI injection well program, the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation started soliciting bids late last month for consultants to prepare an application “to ensure the state meets all EPA requirements for administering the Class VI program, which governs the permitting and oversight of carbon sequestration wells.”
In its July 31 release, the EPA described these types of wells as used to “place fluids [like] water, wastewater, brine (salt water), or water mixed with chemicals” into “porous geologic formations.” The words “climate” and “carbon dioxide” are notably absent from the release.
Ryan Kammer, a carbon management research manager with the Great Plains Institute, a firm that seeks to “accelerate the transition to net-zero carbon emissions for the benefit of people, the economy and the environment,” told MTFP that while he can’t speak for the EPA about its attitude toward CO2 reduction, GPI still sees geologic sequestration as a worthy endeavor that deserves continued development and investment.
“We still see Class VI wells, and carbon management in general, as one of the strategies for lowering carbon emissions,” Kammer said. “From our perspective, it’s still part of an overall climate mitigation strategy.”
With the easement granted by the BLM, Denbury is authorized to drill a stratigraphic well, which will provide the company more information about the area’s underlying geology. Once geologists have a clearer picture of the materials in and above the injection zone (roughly 5,200 to 8,400 feet below ground), the EPA can start evaluating a Class VI injection well application to assess carbon storage potential, impacts to drinking water, and any concerns related to seismic activity. That process typically takes about two years, Kammer said.
“The more data available, the better the permit application will be for EPA’s review and the greater the transparency for the public during the public comment period,” EPA Region 8 spokesperson Marisa Lubeck wrote in an email to MTFP.
Lubeck added that the EPA has not yet received an injection well application from Denbury.
LATEST STORIES
Reconnecting Greater Yellowstone, one fenceline at a time
More than 16,000 miles of barbed-wire fence fragment Greater Yellowstone. That fencing keeps elk from jumping over and pronghorn from scooting under, disrupting what can be millennia-old migrations.
Union and governor’s office sign agreement to reduce state employees’ healthcare rate hike
Healthcare insurance costs for state employees will go up in January, though a bargaining agreement between the Montana Federation of Public Employees and the office of Gov. Greg Gianforte has mitigated some of the spikes that the Montana Department of Administration announced at the end of August.
Grand Teton National Ballpark? Visitors call it a field of nightmares.
Park visitors greet news of a potential MLB game in front of the Tetons with disbelief.
