EAST TENNESSEE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY

January 2026 Virtual Meeting

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Monday, January 12, 2026
6:00 - 7:30 pm

Note: ETGS members will receive an email with info for logging into the meeting.
 

January Presentation

Characterizing Commercial-Scale CO2 Storage Potential in Onshore Fluvial Reservoirs in a Seismically Active Forearc Basin, Cook Inlet, Alaska


By

Richie Ness
Senior Geologist at Advanced Resources Internqtional, Inc.
 

The Cook Inlet is a northeast trending collisional forearc basin in Alaska with gas production that supplies the Alaska Railbelt region. Depleted gas resources and increasing energy demand from artificial intelligence data centers require new low-carbon energy solutions in Alaska. The Alaska Railbelt Carbon Capture and Storage (ARCCS) CarbonSAFE Phase II project is assessing the feasibility of the first commercial-scale geologic storage complex that aims to store 100 Mt CO2 captured from a new coal powerplant over 30 years.

The AOI is located 30 miles west of Anchorage near five onshore gas fields. Well and mud logs define the Mio-Oligocene Tyonek Formation below 8,000 ft as the storage reservoir, with 637 ft net pay, 22% porosity, and 70 mD permeability. The overlying Lower Beluga Formation provides a 500 ft seal of interbedded claystone, coal, and siltstone.

Five whole cores indicate the Tyonek Formation comprises semi-consolidated fine-medium grained sublitharenite sandstone in stacked fluvial sequences. The Upper Tyonek represents a fine, high sinuosity, meandering fluvial environment while the Middle Tyonek is coarse, low sinuosity, and a laterally continuous braided fluvial environment. Drilling mud weights and formation evaluation tests indicate a pore pressure of 0.465 psi/ft and geomechanical modeling estimates a 90% fracture gradient threshold of 0.76 psi/ft for the seal. The Beluga Formation marks the lowermost USDW with recent water quality samples ranging from 5,056-26,400 mg/L TDS. Petrophysical estimates and historical water sampling show high water quality variability laterally and at depth across the AOI.

Dynamic simulations demonstrate 100 Mt CO2 injected over 30 years without exceeding BHP limits, producing a CO2 saturation plume that extends south offshore. The modeled pressure front approaches the Castle Mountain Fault (CMF) 7 miles to the north. Fault slip potential analyses indicate the CMF is near critical stress and pressure increase could approach the slip threshold. The ARCCS project represents the first large-scale CO₂ storage hub feasibility study in Alaska, highlighting both the technical challenges of injection in a seismically active forearc basin and the critical role CO2 storage will play in securing Alaska's low-carbon energy future.
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Biography

Richie Ness is a Senior Geologist at Advanced Resources International, Inc., where he has worked for the past seven years on a wide range of subsurface energy and carbon management projects. His experience includes Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS), CO₂-Enhanced Oil Recovery, conventional, and unconventional resource development, with project work spanning multiple sedimentary basins across North America and Africa. Richie is currently leading the geological model development for the Alaska Railbelt Carbon Capture and Storage (ARCCS) CarbonSAFE Phase II project that aims to store commercial volumes of CO2 in the Cook Inlet Basin. Previously, Richie worked as an Engineering Geologist on natural gas storage fields with the California Geological Energy Management Group in Ventura, California. He holds a bachelor's degree in geology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a master's degree in geoscience from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

 

 

Greetings, and welcome to the January 12, 2026 ETGS virtual meeting.
 

This meeting will be attended via Zoom and as a courtesy please mute your cell phone or the microphone in your laptop/tablet to minimize background noise and feedback echos. We will also make an effort to mute all participants - at least until the presentation is finished. Please use the chat feature to type any comments or questions you may have. We recommend that you send questions for the speaker to "everyone" so all participants can see the question. In the interest of time, we may hold the Q&A at the end of the presentation.

We will create a virtual attendance list. It is not always possible to tell who is participating on-line, especially for those joining by phone, so please email etgs@live.com to be listed on the attendance sheet. Let us know exactly how your name should appear on the list. We will add a note explaining the lack of signatures due to remote participation and have an ETGS officer sign as usual.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we continue with this online format. As always, we welcome and appreciate your feedback and suggestions for improvement.

 

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Tony McClain

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David Carlone

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Page updated December 26, 2025