On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 07:34:30 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 4/28/2014 11:21 PM, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 28 Apr 2014 14:55:49 -0500, wrote:
...

(+) To get this amongst other things they capture off-gas CO2 byproduct
which is piped to OK/TX for use in enhanced oil recovery.

As a sidebar, I find it most interesting to note that w/ all the
ballyhoo over CO2, we were just offered a lease on ground in NM for
drilling and production of CO2 to be transported to Midland/Odessa, TX,
area for the same purpose. IOW, they're getting ready to drill for more
because there's an insufficient supply.

Probably 20 years ago we undertook to install a "flare gas processing"
plant in central Java (Indonesia) at a field that contained a lot of
CO2 in conjunction with the oil. The separation process is not complex
but what were we going to do with the CO2. Then a German company heard
about the field and approached us with the idea of building a plant
adjacent to ours to process the CO2. The plant is still in operation
and the Germans are still buying CO2 :-)

During meeting the German Project Engineer mentioned that the market
was large enough that they were burning diesel fuel to make CO2 and
that they would buy all the CO2 that we could make. Their biggest
customer was the soft drink bottlers, Coke, Pepsi, etc., but they were
expanding into the "dry ice" market as that look profitable for truck
transport of perishables. The Engineer also said that CO2 was used
extensively in Germany to flood grain silos as by removing the oxygen
it killed the bugs.

There are large domes of CO2 in various locations in the mountain
states, particularly CO and NM that is almost devoid of contaminants and
with no petroleum products entrained. There was a dry ice plant in this
remote portion of NM (about 800 people in an entire county with two
villages of roughly 300 each) back in the 20s when it was a (relatively)
booming place. It's not been operational since the 30s when it and much
else went bust.

There's sufficient demand w/ the advent of enhanced oil recovery
techniques in the Permian basin to make it attractive to project
building new pipelines and begin new drilling...to the point of signing
royalty leases, anyway. We'll have to see if the rest comes to
fruition. The longer the current administration continues to dawdle
over Keystone, the better the odds are.

I don't know where US producers of carbonated drinks get their CO2...I
presume it's byproduct of some other processes as well.

A quick check shows that U.S.ians consume, or at least purchase, some
10,220,000,000 cases of carbonated drinks annually.
--
Cheers,

John B.