News 2025

2025: A Quick Review

April 14, 2025: Ramón Gil-Egui will attend a “Workshop on Carbon Management and Community Impact in the Gulf Region” at Lamar University in Beaumont, TX. Ramón is an invited panelist for a session on “Jobs, Community Benefits, and Economic Security.”

March 21, 2025: As part of the University of Houston, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Seminar Series, Research Associate Professor Alex Bump presented, “Playing for Keeps: Novel Concepts for Carbon Sequestration.” Special thanks to Mukul Bhatia and Ashish Bhattarai for setting up the seminar and presentation.

March 18, 2025: The “STEM Sharks Team” that Katherine Romanak has been mentoring from Denham Springs High School from Livingston Parish in Louisiana was not only selected as Louisiana’s State winner in the Samsung Solve Challenge, but as one of the top 10 teams headed to Washington D.C. to pitch their idea to compete for national titles.  

The STEM Sharks Team created a "sensor and application to sense carbon in a body of water." For the CCS world, this is revolutionary for empowering and helping communities stay informed about carbon monitoring and safety in their backyard.

👉 ACTION: Starting today, and until April 20th, the public has the opportunity to vote for a top team for the Tomorrow Community Choice Award (worth $10,000 prize package of Samsung tech products and classroom materials for the high school)! To vote, please click on this link:  https://www.samsung.com/us/solvefortomorrow/ watch their video, and click on "DENHAM SPRINGS HIGH SCHOOL" daily to vote CCS technology as a winner until April 20th! Even if you click once, this would help this outstanding group of students and support their biology teacher, Mr. Mark Zweig, with Samsung products and classroom resources. Congratulations, Team! 

March 11, 2025: Congratulations to Hailun Ni, Andrew Feitz, Eric Tenthorey, Hadi Nourollah, Katherine Romanak, Claire Patterson, and Susan Hovorka for publishing their paper entitled, “Laboratory Sand Tank Modeling of the Brumbys Fault CO₂ Controlled Release Field Experiment” in AGU’s Geophysical Research Letters. The sand tank experiments presented in this manuscript were modeled after a field site at the Otway International Test Center, where CO₂ was injected into a shallow fault. Hailun acknowledges the Gulf Coast Carbon Center and the Southeast Regional Carbon Utilization and Storage Acceleration Initiative (SECARB-USA, DOE Award Number DE-FE0031830) for supporting this research. Congratulations, Team!

March 8, 2025: Congratulations to our EER graduate student, Previna Arumugam, who participated as a panelist for an event entitled, “Women Leading Change! Breaking Barriers, Building Dreams.” For this International Women’s Day virtual event, the National Malaysian Indian Youth Council (MIYC) Women’s Commission collaborated with Pahang State MIYC Women’s Commission to “discuss overcoming challenges and paving the way forward.” 

March 7, 2025: Sue Hovorka and Alex Bump are excited to share the following proposal to develop the “Gulf Coast Resource Accelerator: A Field Lab for the Energy Transition.” The goal is to create a “next-generation field lab to support commercial growth with targeted experiments to reduce costs, accelerate CCS project development, lower risk and reassure public and regulators.”  To download the proposal, click here, and to download the poster, click here. Click here to sign up to receive more information via an email list, to join a working group on the next steps, or if you have a site for the proposed lab.

March 7, 2025: For the GCCC’s weekly meeting, we were joined by representatives from Taiwan’s National Central University (NCU). Special thanks to visitors Professor Andrew Tien-Shun Lin, Dr. Che-Chuan Lin, Ms. Yi-Ling Tsai, and Mr. Wei-Di Syu. Andrew is the Director of the Carbon Storage and Geothermal Research Center. He has been leading several integrated projects on carbon storage for various government agencies and companies in Taiwan. The Bureau of Economic Geology’s Associate Director, Ken Wisian, and Research Associate Dr. Tingwei “Lucy” Ko joined us for this meeting. We also had UT Austin’s PGE’s Assistant Professor Hewei Tang join in on our discussions.

March 2–5, 2025: GCCC Researchers Seyyed Hosseini, Sue Hovorka, Hailun Ni, Carlos Uroza, and Shuvajit Bhattacharya attended the SPE-AAPG-SEG CCUS Conference in Houston, TX.

• Sunday, March 2 – 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM – Shuvajit Bhattacharya taught a short course entitled, “Well Logging and Petrophysics for Geologic Carbon Sequestration”
• Monday, March 3 – 15-minute Lunch Presentation at the Carbon Lounge – Sue Hovorka will discuss the designation of an operator CCS site in Texas, aimed at testing next-generation CCS monitoring technologies. Her presentation will cover the innovative methods and regulatory frameworks necessary for advancing CCS technology and ensuring environmental compliance.
• Monday, March 3 – 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM – Poster presentation: How to Best Model the Impact of Capillary Heterogeneity on CO₂ Flow and Trapping Across Scales by Hailun Ni, N. Darraj, C. Harris, and I. Bukar, Grand Ballroom Prefunction Area, Station Number P27
• Tuesday, March 4 – 1:40 to 2:00 PM – Oral Presentation: Pressure and AoR Assessment for Multiple CCS Projects within the Same Geological Setting Using EASiTool by William Wang, Seyyed Hosseini, and Alex Bump in Rm 310
• Wednesday, March 5 – 9:25 to 9:45 AM – Oral Presentation: Understanding the Key Controls on CO₂ Sequestration in the Wilcox Group, Onshore Texas, USA: Modelling a Deep USDW and Overpressure Constraints by Carlos Uroza, Shuvajit Bhattacharya, and Sue Hovorka in Rm 310

Seyyed Hosseini co-chaired sessions on:

• March 3, Theme 2: Geochemical Models & Simulations (10:55–12:00 pm, Rm 330)
• March 3, Theme 2: Data Assimilation (3:35–5:00 pm, Rm 330)
• March 4, Theme 2: Reactive Transport Modeling (9:20–10:25 am, General Assembly A)

Carlos Uroza co-chaired sessions on:

• March 3, Theme 10: Case Studies & Pilot Projects (1:35–3:00 pm, Rm 310)
• March 3, Theme 10: National & Regional CCS Initiatives (3:35–5:00 pm, Rm 320)

Shuvajit Bhattacharya co-chaired sessions on:

• March 3, See Theme 9: Data & Analytics (9:20–10:25 am, Rm 320)
• March 4, See Theme 9: Modeling & Simulation (1:35 to 3:00 pm, Rm 330)

March 1, 2025: The March issue of “World Cement” Magazine features an article by the Gulf Coast Carbon Center’s Katherine Romanak entitled “CCS 101”* (see p. 81 through 84). Katherine knows the “crucial role that carbon capture and storage (CCS) will play in driving decarbonization within the cement industry.” Katherine addressed the following topics in the article:

1. What is CCS and how does it work?
2. The climate challenge at hand
3. Scientific evidence base for CCS
4. Where are we now with CCS?
5. The process of storing CO2 underground
6. Environmental Impact
7. Moving forward with CCS

Congratulations, Katherine, for writing a great article geared for the cement industry! The article is free, but you have to sign up to access it here.

February 26, 2025: Researchers from the GCCC met with visiting Associate Professor Ryan Pollyea from Virginia Tech’s Department of Geosciences. On February 25, Ryan provided the Bureau of Economic Geology with a seminar about “Carbon Storage Beyond the Basin: Insights into Carbon Mineralization from Reactive Transport Simulation.” In the presentation, Dr. Ryan Pollyea shared a series of student research studies that “leverage numerical simulations to explore feedbacks between multi-phase flow and carbon mineralization in fractured mafic formations.”

February 21, 2025: Thanks to Linda McCall, Meena Balakrishnan, and Carson Werner for joining the GCCC at their weekly meeting to present an overview and update about their pilot work for the Bureau of Economic Geology’s Archive Collection System.

February 14, 2025: We are proud of GCCC students Ruba Afifi, Javid Aliyev, Previna Arumugam, Bimar Maulana, Edwina Owusu-Adjpong, Argenis Pelayo, Romal Ramadhan, Eddie Talen, and Melianna Ulfah for presenting their research posters at the JSG Symposium!

We were delighted to see our GeoForce High School Student, Abram, presenting his GCCC GeoForce research group’s project and are ecstatic that he will be joining The UT Austin JSG’s Geophysics program in the fall! Hook’em!

February 10, 2025: The GCCC welcomes a new Postdoctoral Fellow, Jungang (Gordon) Chen, who recently received a Ph.D. in Petroleum Engineering from Texas A&M University. Gordon's expertise includes reservoir simulations, forward-and-inverse modeling, and machine-learning applications. At the GCCC, Gordon will work with Seyyed Hosseini to focus on a CO₂ capacity estimation tool to enhance EasiTool utilizing cutting-edge, frontend and backend frameworks. Additionally, Gordon is keen to explore advanced computational techniques for solving subsurface engineering challenges.

February 4–5, 2025: The Gulf Coast Carbon Center (GCCC) joined forces with IEAGHG, the Global CCS Institute and University Mohammed VI Polytechnic (UM6P) to hold the first Africa CCUS Forum in Ben Guirer, Morocco. This event brought together those from industry as well as climate and CCUS stakeholders to uncover the potential of CCUS across Morocco and the broader Africa region.

As well as co-organizing the event, the GCCC’s Katherine Romanak also gave a presentation on “Monitoring and safety of storage” and served on a panel entitled "Financing Industrial CCUS" with Omar Germouni (Energy Solutions Company, Saudi Arabia), Wael Mohamed Aaminou (Green Finance Lead for MindEd Inc., Affiliate Professor with UM6P, and Managing Partner for Green for South, Inc.), and Maryem El Farsaoui (Global CCS Institute). Additionally, Katherine co-presented with Tim Dixon of IEAGHG on the advantages of establishing a CCS Centre of Excellend in Morocco. She concluded her contributions with a talk on educational opportunities for technology transfer in CCS.

February 4, 2025: Thanks to Carlos Uroza for giving a lecture on “Geologic Constraints and Reservoir Characterization for CO₂ Storage” to Dr. Sahar Bakhshian’s Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage course at Rice University in Houston, TX.

February 3, 2025: The GCCC’s graduate students, Sean Avitt and Argenis Pelayo, presented their research projects and gave oral presentations at the Austin Geological Society meeting held at the Bureau of Economic Geology in Austin, TX. Sean is a 2nd-year Geoscience master’s student who presented his research on “CCS Freshwater Impacts: Lateral CO₂ and Pressure Migration in the Wilcox Group, DeWitt County, Texas.” Sean also works for the Railroad Commission of Texas, focusing on UIC regulation. Argenis is a 2nd-year Earth and Energy Resources (EER) master's student who presented on the “Impact of Subsurface Setting on CO₂ Storage Leakage Risk: Implications for Financial Responsibility and the Insurance Industry.”

January 29–30, 2025: The GCCC hosted their semiannual 2025 GCCC Sponsors' Meetings at the Texas Geological Survey, known as the Bureau of Economic Geology, on the Pickle Research Campus in Austin, TX.  

Wednesday, January 29 (1:00 to 6:00 pm) - In-Person Only Activities

• CCS Public Outreach Workshop: Giveaways & Swap Meet by Sue Hovorka, Angela Luciano, Katherine Romanak, Alex Bump, and Dolores van der Kolk.  
• Core Workshop on the Wilcox System, Onshore Texas: West-to-East Variability and Implications for CO₂ Sequestration by Carlos Uroza
• Student Poster Session & Reception (4 to 6 pm)

Thursday, January 30 (8:00 am to 3:30 pm) - Hybrid "Lightning" Presentations with our themes:

• Optimizing Storage in Space & Time
• Providing Storage Assurance for Everyone
• Getting the Message Out on CCS
• Business Enablers
• Hunting Success - Where Next?

January 25, 2025: The GCCC’s graduate student, Bimar Maulana, was one of three panelists in an event entitled, Global Professional Training: East and Southeast Asia Symposium at The University of Texas at Austin. A goal of this event, organized by the Texas Global, was to provide students with fresh perspectives about professional experiences in East and Southeast Asia. Bimar participated as a panelist to discuss living, studying, and working in Indonesia.

January 24–26, 2025: The GCCC's graduate student, Argenis Pelayo, utilized his machine-learning skills at UT Austin's Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering (UT PGE) 5th Annual Energy AI Hackathon. Special thanks to Professors Michael Pyrcz and John Foster for hosting this event that Argenis described as "energizing as it was challenging." Argenis appreciated also working with a real-world dataset thanks to ExxonMobil. Tasked with predicting energy sources and usage across oil and gas facilities, 200 students set out to crack the challenge. In 40 hours, Argenis and teammates Devansh Pandey, Julio Villarroel, and Cash Sorrels found that sometimes the simplest models deliver the strongest results. Congratulations to all participants and to Argenis’ team for cracking the challenge.

January 22, 2025: Congratulations to Jose E. Ubillus, Sahar Bakhshian, Hailun Ni, David DiCarlo, and Tip Meckel for their recent publication entitled, “Informing field-scale CO₂ storage simulations with sandbox experiments: The effect of small-scale heterogeneities.” Jose is a recent GCCC graduate and Sahar is now with Rice University. What a great achievement for this group! Congratulations!  

January 14–15, 2025: GCCC Researchers attended the “Gulf of Mexico Basin Depositional Synthesis Project (GBDS) Phase 15.1 IAP Meeting.” Carlos Uroza, Ramon Trevino, Sue Hovorka and Dolores van der Kolk attended various portions of the Mike Sweet’s Core Workshop entitled “From Rivers to Submarine Fans in the Paleogene Wilcox Group,” the 30-Year Anniversary Celebration Reception, and day of technical presentations.

For the anniversary celebration, Carlos Uroza presented a poster entitled, “A Review of the Wilcox Group, Onshore Texas: Opportunities for CO₂ Storage,” by Carlos A. Uroza, Mariana I. Olariu, Maria M. Madariaga, Shuvajit Bhattacharya, and Susan Hovorka. Our researchers were delighted to get caught up with many friends including GBDS Project Manager Patricia E. Ganey-Curry and UTIG Professor Emeritus William Galloway.

January 10, 2025: The GCCC welcomes an Energy and Earth Resource Master’s student, Ssu-Chi Yang, as a new GCCC graduate student who will work on the Frio Formation with Carlos Uroza and Sue Hovorka. In 2023, Ssu-Chi received a B.A. in Earth Science from the National Central University in Taiwan. Welcome, Ssu-Chi Yang!

January 10, 2025: Thanks to Alex Bump for hosting our GCCC weekly meeting that became an interactive workshop entitled, “Hook’em! How to create engaging posters and talks.”  For the hour, GCCC students and researchers enjoyed discussing how to make their research topics more engaging to connect with audiences. This set up our GCCC students really well for future poster sessions. Over the next two GCCC weekly meetings that followed, our graduate students presented versions of their research posters in preparation for the upcoming GCCC’s Sponsors’ Meeting and the JSG Research Symposium. Hook’em Horns!    

January 9–10, 2025: Sue Hovorka, Katherine Romanak, and Angela Luciano attended a Texas-Louisiana Carbon Management Community (TXLA CMC) workshop for university participants in Corpus Christi, TX. As part of TXLA CMC, the GCCC at The University of Texas at Austin partners with those from Texas A&M in Kingsville and Corpus Christi, University of Houston, Lamar University, and Louisiana State University to discuss carbon capture & storage outreach strategies and the group’s expertise. This workshop, hosted by the Harte Institute at Texas A&M in Corpus Christi included two days of sharing technical and outreach materials, communication tactics, and addressing questions from social scientists new to the CCS industry. Fifteen people attended the meeting in person, and several people, including students, attended online.

January 9, 2025: Congratulations to Jose Eduardo Ubillus, Hailun Ni, David DiCarlo, and Tip Meckel for having their manuscript entitled, “Experimental Investigation of Buoyant Flow in Realistic Bedforms with Heterogeneous Wettability” published in the SPE Journal. This manuscript was published from Jose’s graduate research, he graduated from the PGE department last year, and is now working for Vaulted Deep.