US hits gigaton milestone in CO2 injection

The US has reached a significant milestone in carbon management: the injection of 1 gigaton of CO2 into geological formations.

This achievement showcases the potential to capture, transport and inject large volumes of CO2. As organizations and governments worldwide strive to meet climate targets, the US's accomplishment serves as a benchmark for other countries when it comes to carbon management.

S&P Global Commodity Insights tracked well-level injection volumes back to 1981, when only 0.004 million mt was injected, all the way through 2024, when 46.3 million mt was injected. "This volume represents 9% of US energy-related industrial CO2 emissions and demonstrates the potential of CCS to provide a material impact in reducing emissions from these hard-to-abate sources," said Carolyn Seto, Commodity Insights executive director for energy transition and innovation.

How was this accomplished?

Carbon capture, utilization and storage involves three key steps:

1. Capture: While capturing anthropogenic CO2 was deployed sporadically during the last 44 years, most of the volumes the US injected came from geologically sourced reservoirs.
2. Transport: The US constructed 5,984 miles of CO2 pipelines to transport the sourced CO2. An additional 2,524 miles, or 42% of the current pipeline capacity length, is proposed or under construction currently in the US.
3. Utilization and storage: 1,628 wells were used to inject the 1 gigaton total. The majority of the volume tracked was being utilized in enhanced recovery operations. In these operations a small quantity of the CO2 gets sequestered, while a large quantity of CO2 gets emulsified with the production, separated at surface, then reinjected. The volumes in this report do not quantify the amount of CO2 sequestered, only injected.

• Gulf States: Mississippi, Texas, and Louisiana received 88% of the of CO2
• Rockies: Wyoming, Montana, and Colorado received 11% of the CO2

• One Leader of the Pack: Denbury (now XOM) injected 646 million mt
• Nearest neighbors: Oxy, Contago, and Kinder Morgan round out the next three

The road ahead

It took the US 44 years to collect, transport and inject 1 gigaton of CO2. To meet the planet's ambitious net-zero climate goals, the world will need to capture, transport and sequester about 6.9 billion mt/year of CO2 by 2042. In 2024, the US injected 0.67% or 46.3 million mt of the 6,889 million mt the world needs to be sequestering within 16 years to achieve the Accelerated CCS net-zero scenario.

The durability of policy and continued investment into carbon management are essential to reach our goals. Thus, the S&P Global base case scenario (Inflections) estimates emissions reductions from CCUS at 2.6 billion mt/year by 2050.

By leveraging the lessons learned from reaching this milestone, the world can further enhance its CCUS capabilities.