Houston, Texas-based energy company Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, a subsidiary of Kinder Morgan, Inc., has announced it will invest approximately $1 billion as a part of an expansion project that seeks to enhance its oil recovery program.
The money will be spent on building a 213-mile, 16-inch diameter pipeline from Apache County, Ariz. to Torrance County, N.M. that will move carbon dioxide to be utilized in various projects owned by Kinder Morgan and other companies in New Mexico and Texas. About $300 million will be invested in constructing the Lobos Pipeline, while the remaining $700 million will be allocated for drilling new wells at Kinder Morgan's carbon dioxide field in Arizona. The pipeline will have a capacity of 300 million standard cubic feet per day and its construction will create about 1,200 jobs, the company stated.
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Currently, the pipeline project is still subject to regulatory approval, but Kinder Morgan is planning to have the pipeline in operation by the third quarter of 2016. Jim Wuerth, president of the company's carbon dioxide group, commented that the company believed enhanced oil recovery technology will grow further in the future, as it significantly boosts U.S. recoverable oil supplies. Oil companies use carbon dioxide in drilling for oil because it can increase the amount of oil they can recover, as the gas expands and pushes additional amounts of oil into the well.
