By Liz Hampton
DENVER (Reuters) -Oil major BP has begun drilling an appraisal well in Texas for its U.S. carbon capture and sequestration business, an executive said on Monday.
In May, BP said it and partner Linde planned to develop a site along the Texas coast to bury carbon dioxide produced from a Linde manufacturing site outside of Houston.
“We are currently using our subsurface and expertise to drill an appraisal well, for our U.S. carbon capture and storage business,” Jack Collins, finance chief of BP’s BPX Energy shale subsidiary, said at the EnerCom conference. He declined to provide details.
BPX in April received state approval for a permit to drill an exploratory well in Galveston County, according to a filing with Texas’ energy regulator, the Texas Railroad Commission. Located on property belonging to Hall’s Bayou Ranch, the well was not intended to target or produce hydrocarbons, the permit said.
A spokesperson for Hall’s Bayou Ranch, a hunting and fishing club, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. BP did not immediately comment on details in the permit.
(Reporting by Liz Hampton in Denver; Editing by Sam Holmes)
