The project will be managed by DOE's Rocky Mountain Oilfield Testing Center (RMOTC), which operates the Teapot Dome oil field.

In managing the project, RMOTC will link the concepts of carbon sequestration and enhanced oil recovery through under-ground injection of CO2 into older fields to boost production that has declined.

The carbon sequestration potential from the project is projected to be at least 2.6 million tons of CO2 annually with a concurrent rise in related oil production of about 30,000 barrels a day, almost six times the current production level.

The Teapot Dome project could grow to be one of the three largest sequestration tests in the world. Conceived with a potential surface area spanning 50-square-miles.

The project is currently at stage one, which will determine the nature, feasibility and merit of subsequent steps. CO2 injection would begin about 2006 and continue for seven to 10 years.

Project partners to date are RMOTC; Anadarko; The University of Wyoming and its Institute for Energy Research; the University of Maryland; the Colorado School of Mines; iReservoir.com; the University of Colorado-British Petroleum Center for 3-D Visualization; the University of Texas at Dallas; the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.