The US EPA on Jan. 24 issued permits that allow Wabash Carbon Services LLC to construct two wells for the eventual injection and permanent storage of carbon dioxide underground, one at a site in Vermillion County and another in Vigo County, Ind.
These underground injection wells will be used to store carbon dioxide captured from Wabash Valley Resources LLC’s (WVR) planned $1.2 billion, 500,000 mt/y fertilizer plant near West Terre Haute, Ind.
“After a thorough technical review and engagement with the public, including consideration of over 1,000 public comments, EPA has determined that the two proposed wells meet public health and safety requirements to move forward,” said EPA Region 5 Administrator Debra Shore.
Wabash Carbon Services plans to inject up to 1.67 million mt/y of carbon dioxide into the wells over an injection period of 12 years. In 2021, WVR selected Honeywell, Des Plaines, Ill., to provide a range of its Honeywell UOP technologies to help capture and sequester the carbon.
Plans for the ammonia project date back to 2016 (GM May 20, 2016), when Phibro LLC, Stamford, Conn., announced that its affiliate, Philipp Brothers Fertilizer, together with a group of investors, had acquired SG Solutions’ Gasification Plant. Phibro planned to convert the clean coal gasification plant into ammonia production. Originally, the plant used coal and petroleum coke, and at last report the plan was to use petcoke and biomass for the new production. It will also generate electricity.
WVR
said the project will displace half of the imported ammonia supply to Illinois,
Indiana, and Ohio and would put downward pressure on prices. It said it will
add more than 1,100 direct and indirect jobs, including the creation of up to
500 union construction jobs at peak employment, and add over 100 permanent jobs
at the facility.