Kinder Morgan officials announced Tuesday it plans to invest more than $670 million to grow its carbon dioxide (CO2) infrastructure in southwestern Colorado and New Mexico.

The company’s plan includes expanding its CO2 production operations in the Cow Canyon area of the McElmo Dome source field in Montezuma County. Capital expenditures for the Cow Canyon development are estimated at approximately $344 million, and would increase CO2 production in the McElmo Dome source field by 200 million cubic feet per day by the end of 2015, according to a company press release.

In Montezuma County, the plan includes on-going 3-D seismic acquisition, 16 new wells, activation of one production well and one produced water disposal well, water separation facilities, one central compressor station, and associated gathering and produced water disposal pipelines, the company stated.

Capital expenditures for the Cortez Pipeline expansion are estimated at approximately $327 million, and would increase the pipeline’s capacity from 1.35 billion cubic feet per day to 2 billion cubic feet per day.

Known as enhanced oil recovery, the CO2 is piped to west Texas and southern Utah oil fields, where it is pumped into near-depleted wells to extract more oil.

With a combined enterprise value of approximately $100 billion, Kinder Morgan owns an interest in or operates approximately 80,000 miles of pipelines and 180 terminals. Its pipelines transport natural gas, gasoline, crude oil, CO2 and other products, and its terminals store petroleum products and chemicals and handle such products as ethanol, coal, petroleum coke and steel.

tbaker@cortezjournal.com