The Geology of the Deeply Carbon Negative Louisiana Green Fuels CCS Project

Zoom Virtual Luncheon

Wednesday, October 25, 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM CST

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The Geology of the Deeply Carbon Negative Louisiana Green Fuels --CCS Project Caldwell Parish, Louisiana

Speaker: Steve Walkinshaw, Vision Exploration

 In northeast Louisiana, the world’s most deeply carbon-negative renewable fuels project is underway.  From forest waste products, Strategic Biofuels’ planned Louisiana Green Fuels refinery, located just north of Columbia in Caldwell Parish, will annually produce 32 million gallons of renewable fuel comprised of 83% synthetic diesel and 17% naphtha, all of which will be shipped to California via rail.  The Louisiana Green Fuels refinery is also capable of producing significant volumes of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (“SAF”). An on-site biomass power plant will consume sawmill waste and provide all of the power for the refinery, thus enabling the facility to be completely “off the grid”.  All of the waste gas from the power plant and refinery will be sequestered underground using 3 purpose-built injection wells.

The underground sequestration of all of the facility’s waste gas, 99.5% carbon dioxide, represents a critically important operational objective of the Louisiana Green Fuels facility.  To demonstrate the viability of the proposed CCS operation, in 2021 a 6,200’ Class V injection test well was drilled and injection-tested just southeast of the proposed plant site.  Numerous whole cores and rotary cores – along with a comprehensive suite of open-hole logs – were acquired to analyze the rock properties of the primary CO₂ sequestration zones and the upper and lower confining layers.  Most of these strata had neither been cored nor studied in the northeast Louisiana area for many decades.

Strategic Biofuels submitted its Class VI application to the EPA via its GSDT on March 15, 2023 and its application was deemed Administratively Complete on April 24, 2023.  Because it had already drilled, cored, and injection-tested its Class V injection test well in 2021, the comprehensive site-specific data derived from the testing of the proposed sequestration reservoirs was thoroughly integrated into the static and dynamic modeling that formed the cornerstone of the Company’s Class VI permit application, thus ensuring that its application was more advanced than most other Class VI applications submitted to the EPA to date.   

This presentation focuses on this innovative facility, its unique project economics, the subsurface geology of the Caldwell Parish area, and the drilling, evaluation, and testing of the Louisiana Green Fuels injection test well.

About the Speaker

Steve Walkinshaw, President, Vision Exploration LLC

Steve Walkinshaw, VP of Geosciences, brings with him 40 years of experience in oil and gas exploration and development. He is responsible for geology as it relates to carbon sequestration and has been working together with Strategic Biofuels since November 2020. He performed the initial seismic analysis for the project and has worked directly with our COO Bob Meredith and Geostock Sandia in developing and executing the sequestration test well program and the ongoing analysis required for submission of the EPA Class VI well permit.

Walkinshaw is the owner and manager of Vision Exploration, LLC and graduated from Millsaps College in 1981. As an adjunct professor, Steve has also taught Petroleum Geology at Millsaps College.  He is a Registered Professional Geologist in the State of Mississippi, a Licensed Professional Geoscientist in the State of Louisiana, and an AAPG/DPA Certified Petroleum Geologist.­­

Steve  Walkinshaw is the chief geoscientist for the Louisiana Green Fuels project and has been responsible for most of the geological mapping and all of the geophysical mapping and wellsite supervision related to the project.  He is also the chief liaison for the company in its dealings with CARB, the LDNR, and the EPA, and was responsible for recently filing the company’s Class VI Permit application with the EPA via the GSDT. Steve is based in Madison, Mississippi and is also the owner and manager of Vision Exploration, LLC.  He graduated from Millsaps College in 1981 and has 42 years of experience in oil & gas exploration and development as well as carbon capture sequestration and geothermal exploration. Steve is a Registered Professional Geologist in the State of Mississippi, a Licensed Professional Geoscientist in the State of Louisiana, and an AAPG/DPA Certified Petroleum Geologist.  This PowerPoint was recently presented at the 2023 SPE / AAPG / SEG CCUS Conference in Houston. 

Steve was also a contributing author for two other related presentations given at the same Conference: “Rock Strength measurements associated with sCO2 injection into saline aquifers for the Louisiana Green Fuels CCS Project, Caldwell Parish, Louisiana” (Lori Hathon, University of Houston, lead author) and “Reservoir model calibration of sCO2 injection into saline aquifers for the Louisiana Green Fuels CCS Project, Caldwell Parish, Louisiana” (Alessandra Simone, Geostock Sandia, lead author).