MIDLAND COUNTY, Texas (KMID/KPEJ)- In tonight’s Powering the Permian report, we’re learning more about a new facility opening up in the Basin with the goal of helping reduce the carbon footprint of some local companies. 

Milestone Carbon is a Houston based company focused on doing just; the company recently purchased more than 10,000 acres of land in Midland and Upton counties and plan to build a carbon sequestration facility on that land. Industry leaders said the site could be ready as early as 2025 and would make the Permian Basin among the first active carbon capture sites for permanent carbon sequestration in Texas. 

“What’s really great is the Permian Basin has been a leader in taking carbon dioxide and moving it in pipelines and injecting into the ground for decades, and so we’re taking that technology and we’re expanding it beyond the oil field now to other industries so we can help clean emissions from other sources,” said Milestone Carbon Senior Vice President, Chris Davis. 

Based on the geological investigation completed to date, Milestone Carbon estimates that the Midland Basin hub should have sufficient capacity to store approximately 30 million metric tons of carbon dioxide over its life, which is roughly equivalent to the annual carbon emissions from 6.5 million U.S. passenger cars and trucks. This storage capacity would be utilized by both Class II and Class VI injection wells to safely and securely sequester CO2 from multiple emitters.

“It is intended to help make the Permian oil and gas industry more competitive internationally, so reducing carbon intensity is one of the markers we’re looking to help the industry achieve over time, the other is again bringing in other sources of low carbon tech and product development. So, for instance, we can take natural gas and convert it to hydrogen. We need to find a place to put the carbon dioxide though so that’s a low carbon hydrogen quality. We wanna make sure that we show a signal that the oil and gas industry is gonna help lead the way as we transition to new sources of fuel, and we wanna do it in a way that doesn’t raise the cost of energy for people or impair the reliability of energy for people, so we need to make sure we have affordable reliable energy sources moving forward,” Davis said.

Milestone Carbon said building hubs in the Midland Basin provides a low-cost solution for heavy industry and energy producers seeking to reduce and offset emissions, including natural gas processing, electricity generation, and other critical industrises that play a vital role in driving the area’s economy.