Crude oil prices topped $100 a barrel Wednesday, but producers in Wyoming say they can't open the spigot fast enough to take advantage of the price.

The Cowboy State reaps about $30 million annually from oil production in severance tax revenues alone.

Internationally, the $100 milestone solidifies the notion that global demand for oil will outstrip supplies. It comes after several years of surging petroleum-based economies in India and China along with turmoil in oil-producing regions including Nigeria and Iran.

Although Wyoming oil producers welcome higher prices for the commodity, they're not exactly celebrating the $100 per barrel event. Many in the industry here bemoan not having carbon dioxide supplies and pipeline infrastructure in place to sweep oil out of aging fields.

"Nobody wants to sit around and watch these prices go by," said Peter Wold, president and co-owner of Casper-based Wold Oil Properties.

Wold also chairs the University of Wyoming's Enhanced Oil Recovery Institute. He said the oil industry had all the incentive it needed to invest in secondary and tertiary recovery projects when the price of oil hit $75 per barrel.

"We thought we'd died and gone to heaven," Wold said. "It makes marginal projects that much more economic. So people have been incentivized for several years now."

Wyoming's long oil production decline turned around in 2005 due to Anadarko Petroleum's CO2 flooding at the old Salt Creek and Monel oil fields near Midwest. Several years ago, Anadarko completed a CO2 pipeline from LaBarge, where it takes CO2 from ExxonMobile's Shute Creek natural gas processing plant.

Anadarko also acquired marketing rights for the CO2, expecting to supply a number of declining oil fields in the Powder River Basin. But Wold said that hasn't happened, so far, because Anadarko is using all the CO2 it can get for its own flooding projects at Salt Creek and Monel.

"So they're not able to provide excess CO2 to producers in the Powder River Basin that are screaming for CO2," Wold said.

Anadarko spokesman Rick Robitaille confirmed that information, and said it could be four or five more years before Anadarko will be able to recirculate a significant volume of CO2 at Salt Creek and Monel.

"It's unfortunate there's not more available," Robitaille said.

The next significant source of CO2 could come from DKRW's planned coal-to-liquids plant near Medicine Bow, but the plant isn't expected to be in production until 2013.

Meanwhile, the biggest beneficiaries of rising oil prices in Wyoming may be natural gas producers.

Deep natural gas wells near Wamsutter and in the Jonah and Pinedale Anticline fields produce a liquid byproduct known as condensate. Technically, it's not oil, but it sells for a sweet crude oil price and is lumped in with oil production statistics.

In 2006, Wyoming saw an oil production increase of 1.25 million barrels, or 2.4 percent - the largest increase in 21 years, according to Don Likwartz, supervisor of the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

Likwartz said condensate from deep natural gas wells in the Jonah and Pinedale Anticline fields made up 63 percent of the increase, while the remaining 37 percent came from Anadarko's Salt Creek and Monel CO2 flooding projects.

Final production figures haven't been calculated for 2007. But for the first nine months of the year, production was running 2.6 percent ahead of 2006. Likwartz said if that pace held up to the end of 2007, it should put production for the year at 54.3 million barrels the highest in five years.

Tad True, vice president of Belle Fourche Pipeline in Casper, said although the industry is investing in tertiary recovery projects in Wyoming, the additional volumes so far don't compare to what's coming on line in North Dakota.

Each month, daily oil production in North Dakota increases by about 2,000 barrels, he said.

True also headed the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission's task force to investigate the oil price differential - the difference in price between Rocky Mountain states and the rest of the nation. True said what happens in North Dakota affects Wyoming, because they all tie into the same pipeline and refinery infrastructure.

"The biggest increases coming on line are in North Dakota," True said. "There's a lot more production, and not more pipe to take it out until 2009."

Enbridge Inc. recently expanded pipeline capacity in North Dakota by about 25,000 barrels per day, but True said the capacity was snapped up immediately.

The result of limited pipeline and refinery capacity is a discount on oil in the Rockies region. On average, oil sells for about $10 to $20 per barrel less here than at other trading hubs, True said.

On Wednesday, Likwartz said, Wyoming oil was selling at a discount of $20.65 per barrel.

"I wish we were getting that $100 oil," Likwartz said.

Energy reporter Dustin Bleizeffer can be reached at (307) 577-6069 or dustin.bleizeffer@trib.com.