Press Release
Air Products Celebrates Texas Carbon Capture Demonstration Project Achievement
Captured CO2 Increases U.S. Natural Resource Output At Enhanced Oil Recovery Operation
10 May 2013
LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa., May 10, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Air Products (NYSE: APD) today celebrated the successful operation of a United States Department of Energy (DOE) Demonstration Project that will capture approximately one million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) in an enhanced oil recovery project in which DOE anticipates an additional estimated 1.6-3.1 million barrels of oil to be produced annually from the CO2 injection. This unprecedented achievement comes by way of an Air Products innovative technology, is the first-of-its-kind operating at such a large scale, and has not been accomplished anywhere else in the United States.
Described by the DOE as a milestone in its Industrial Carbon Capture and Storage (ICCS) program, Air Products’ carbon capture project in Port Arthur, Texas recovers and purifies the CO2, all of which is then transported in its gaseous state by Air Products via a pipeline owned by Denbury Green Pipeline-Texas, LLC for injection into the Denbury Onshore operated West Hastings Unit, an enhanced oil recovery project in Texas.
“Air Products is very proud to celebrate this Demonstration Project’s success. When you define projects that could be a model of sustainability, it doesn’t get much better than this effort in taking a vented greenhouse gas and capturing it, cleaning it up, and sequestering it in the process of increasing the output of a valuable domestic natural resource like crude oil,” said Jeff Byrne , vice president and general manager – Tonnage Gases at Air Products.
“We have worked hard to build our reputation for successfully executing large scale industrial projects and bringing them onstream, on time and budget. We did just that, here at Port Arthur, using a new patent-protected technology that we developed. At the same time, this novel and technology-leading Demonstration Project would not have been achievable without the support and involvement of DOE,” he said.
Air Products designed, constructed, and is now operating the state-of-the-art system to capture CO2 from its steam methane reformers (SMR) located within the Valero Port Arthur Refinery. The CO2 removal technology was retrofitted to the SMRs, which produce hydrogen to assist in the making of cleaner burning transportation fuels by refinery customers on Air Products’ Gulf Coast hydrogen pipeline network. Hydrogen is widely used in petroleum refining processes to remove impurities found in crude oil such as sulfur, olefins and aromatics to meet product fuels specifications.
Incidentally, Air Products’ Gulf Coast hydrogen plant and pipeline supply network is the world’s largest system of its kind. The pipeline stretches from the Houston Ship Channel in Texas to New Orleans, Louisiana. The 600-mile pipeline span is fed by over 20 Air Products’ hydrogen production facilities and provides over 1.2 billion cubic feet of hydrogen per day to refinery and petrochemical customers.
DOE had previously stated that, “This event marks a milestone in DOE’s ICCS program: progressing beyond research and development to a demonstration scale that can be readily replicated and deployed into commercial practice within the industry. Goals of the ICCS program are to mitigate climate change through carbon capture, utilization and storage; create jobs; and position the United States as a world leader in carbon-capture technologies.”
DOE provided a significant portion of the funding (66%) for the over $400 million project. In June 2010, Air Products was selected to receive $253 million in funding from DOE through the National Energy Technology Laboratory under the ICCS Program, which is funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) for this project. It later received an additional $30 million from DOE through the ARRA for final engineering, design, construction, and project operation through September 2015. Air Products’ project was the only industrial gas company led undertaking selected by DOE, and one of only three projects receiving additional funding towards a commercial demonstration project.
The DOE has estimated that Air Products’ Port Arthur Project will assist in the recovery of 1.6-3.1 million additional barrels of domestic oil annually. DOE has stated that when an oil well begins “playing out,” not enough oil is pumped to make it worthwhile to continue using the well, and the well is closed or “shut-in,” even though much of the original oil in the field remains in the formation. Several methods of enhanced oil recovery have been developed to recover this remaining oil, including pumping CO2 down to the oil reservoir. A primary purpose of the DOE project is, however, the monitoring, verification, and accounting program to ensure that the injected CO2 remains underground, safely and permanently trapped in the same geologic formation that confined the oil brought to the surface in the demonstration.
Air Products has also worked on several carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects around the world for the power market. These projects include:
• The world’s first full demonstration of oxyfuel CCS with Vattenfall AB, one of Europe’s leading energy companies. Air Products installed its proprietary CO2 capture, purification, and compression system at Vattenfall’s facility in Schwarze Pumpe, Germany, viewed globally as the preeminent CO2 oxyfuel project.
• In collaboration with the Alberta Energy Research Institute, a study focused on advanced CO2 capture technology for use with gasification.
• In cooperation with DOE, Air Products designed and constructed a CO2 purification system in support of oxyfuel technology development at a boiler-simulation facility in Connecticut.
• Air Products demonstrated oxyfuel sour compression technology in work by Imperial College London with flue gas from a 160 kilowatt coal-fired combustion installation at Doosan Babcock’s facility in Scotland, as part of the Oxycoal-UK Project.
Details on Air Products’ CO2 purification technologies can be found at www.airproducts.com/microsite/carbon_capture/index.asp.
Additional details on Air Products’ expertise in hydrogen production and supply can be found at www.airproducts.com/microsite/h2-pipeline/.
About Air Products
Air Products (NYSE: APD) provides atmospheric, process and specialty gases; performance materials; equipment; and technology. For over 70 years, the company has enabled customers to become more productive, energy efficient and sustainable. More than 20,000 employees in over 50 countries supply innovative solutions to the energy, environment and emerging markets. These include semiconductor materials, refinery hydrogen, coal gasification, natural gas liquefaction, and advanced coatings and adhesives. In fiscal 2012, Air Products had sales approaching $10 billion. For more information, visit www.airproducts.com.
NOTE: This release may contain forward-looking statements within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on management’s reasonable expectations and assumptions as of the date of this release regarding important risk factors. Actual performance and financial results may differ materially from projections and estimates expressed in the forward-looking statements because of many factors not anticipated by management, including risk factors described in the Company’s Form 10K for its fiscal year ended September 30, 2012.
Air Products’ Port Arthur, TX Steam Methane Reforming with CO2 Capture Project, at Air Products’ Hydrogen Facility at Valero Refinery, SU Dec 2012. Demonstration project under DOE Cooperative Agreement, total project cost $431MM, DOE share $283MM (66%). 90% CO2 capture from 2 SMR’s via AP vacuum swing adsorption (VSA) technology, captured CO2 >1 MM ST/year, ~ 2,900 ST/D, ~ 50 MMSCFD, compressed (2,200 psig) and dried. New 28 MWe cogen unit added to supply make-up steam to SMR’s and operate VSA and compression equipment. CO2 to Denbury main pipeline 13 miles away, destined for EOR in West Hastings, TX oil field. Phase 1, supply of CO2 from one SMR (PA II), announced on-stream Feb 2013. Phase 2, CO2 from 2nd SMR (PA I), expected on-stream Mar/Apr 2013.
Press Release
Breakthrough Industrial Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage Project Begins Full-Scale Operations
May 10, 2013 – 11:36 am
WASHINGTON — The Energy Department’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy Christopher Smith today attended a dedication ceremony at the Air Products and Chemicals hydrogen production facilities in Port Arthur, Texas. Supported by a $284 million Energy Department investment, the company has successfully begun capturing carbon dioxide from industrial operations and is now using that carbon for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and securely storing it underground. This first-of-a-kind, breakthrough project advances carbon capture, utilization and storage technologies and demonstrates the potential to safely secure carbon dioxide pollution underground while providing an economic benefit and increasing our energy security.
At full-scale operation, more than 90 percent of the carbon dioxide from the product stream of two methane steam reformers — or approximately one million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year — will be delivered for sequestration and EOR, which will lead to an estimated annual increase in oil production of 1.6 to 3.1 million barrels from the West Hastings oil field located about 20 miles south of Houston, Texas.
“The Energy Department is investing in cutting-edge technologies that will help us safely and more sustainably develop all of America’s rich energy resources,” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy Christopher Smith. “This groundbreaking project demonstrates the potential to produce economic benefits and increase our energy security while greatly reducing the environmental impacts of our fossil energy use.”
The two retrofitted Air Products and Chemicals plants produce commercial bulk hydrogen primarily for use at the nearby Valero refinery. The approximately $431 million project, supported by $284 million from the Energy Department, included retrofitting the plants with an innovative system that separates carbon dioxide from the steam reformer product gas during hydrogen production, followed by compression and drying processes. The Energy Department investment also helped construct a 13.1-mile-long feeder that connects the two plants to an existing 325-mile, 24-inch carbon dioxide pipeline, Denbury’s Green Pipeline, that begins in Louisiana and ends at the West Hastings field. Careful carbon dioxide monitoring, verification, and accounting activities to ensure the injected carbon dioxide remains in the underground geologic formation will take place throughout the lifetime of the project.
The first plant has been capturing carbon dioxide since December 2012, while the second plant completed construction in February and began carbon capture operations in March. Both units are now operating at full capacity. Over 222,000 tons of carbon dioxide have been captured and provided for storage as of early May.
The Port Arthur project is part of the Energy Department’s broader efforts to leverage cutting-edge research to show that not only can Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology help industry make fossil energy use cleaner, safer and more sustainable, it also shows promise as a method to extract more, hard-to-access and presently untapped fossil energy resources. By putting the captured carbon dioxide to use, Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) provides an additional business and market case for companies to pursue the environmental benefits of CCS.
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