Talos on the lookout for anchor partners after formalising CCS hub site

After formally executing the lease for “the first-ever major offshore carbon sequestration site in the United States”, oil and gas player Talos Energy is hoping to find anchor industrial partners to work on reducing industrial emissions through its carbon capture and storage (CCS) initiatives along the U.S. Gulf Coast and the Gulf of Mexico.

Talos Energy informed on Wednesday that its venture with Carbonvert, Bayou Bend CCS, had executed definitive lease documentation with the Texas General Land Office (GLO) to formalise the previously announced CCS site – located offshore Jefferson County, Texas – near the Beaumont and Port Arthur, Texas industrial corridor.

According to Talos, the lease documentation, executed on 11 March 2022, established the offshore carbon sequestration site, known as Bayou Bend CCS. It comprises more than 40,000 acres (around 162 square kilometres) immediately adjacent to the Beaumont and Port Arthur, Texas industrial corridor and maintains an estimated sequestration capacity of 225 – 275 million metric tons of CO₂. Talos holds a 50 per cent equity interest in the project and will act as its operator.

Timothy S. Duncan, Talos President and Chief Executive Officer, said the company is looking forward to making significant progress on this important CCS hub opportunity in 2022.

“In the coming months, we hope to identify anchor industrial partners for the Bayou Bend CCS project as well as a midstream transportation solution in the region. Our bid for the large-scale permanent sequestration site was selected from a highly competitive process in August last year.”

To remind, Talos in August 2021 secured a carbon capture and storage site in Texas state waters in the Gulf of Mexico, close to a large concentration of industrial emitters along the coast.

“Since the GLO bid and subsequent award announcement, the team has moved rapidly to build out one of the premier CCS project portfolios in the United States, which has now all been organized under Talos Low Carbon Solutions, or “TLCS,” the company’s CCS subsidiary,” added Duncan.

Separately, Talos also announced that it had established a CCS strategic alliance with Core Laboratories (Core Lab), a provider of reservoir description and enhancement products and services, in a bid to secure technical evaluation and assurance services for CCS subsurface analysis, including the company’s upcoming 2022 stratigraphic evaluation wells.

Based on Talos’ statement, the technical alliance with Core Lab was established on 5 March 2022 to advance CCS site characterisation, including stratigraphic evaluation wells, reservoir core sampling, geological assessment, and rock and fluid sample analysis. The firm considers all of these to be critical inputs for EPA Class VI permit applications.

In addition, the alliance provides a framework for future collaboration around transparent CO₂ stream monitoring and verification and Talos has previously teamed up with Core Lab on numerous upstream subsurface activities.

Robin Fielder, Talos Executive Vice President Low Carbon Strategy and Chief Sustainability Officer, remarked: “Capitalizing on our respective subsurface expertise, this alliance strengthens our technical capabilities leading up to the filing of CO₂ injection well permits this year and advances TLCS’s ability to deliver high-quality, end-to-end CCS solutions to customers across the Gulf Coast.”

When it comes to Talos’ achievements in pursuing more CCS opportunities, it is worth noting that the company expanded its CCS project portfolio to three sequestration projects in February 2022. This includes two regional hubs and one point source, spanning the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coasts.

Earlier this month, the U.S. player also entered into an optional agreement with Howard Energy Partners and the Port of Corpus Christi Authority to pursue commercial CCS opportunities on-site at the Port of Corpus Christi through a project which will be known as the Coastal Bend Carbon Management Partnership.