Houston attracts growing number of carbon capture projects

A recent wave of decarbonization project announcements, including a Norwegian company’s expansion into Houston, demonstrates how the region has positioned itself as a hub for businesses and collaborations advancing low-carbon solutions .

Capsol Technologies ASA, a Norwegian carbon capture and storage company focused on capturing carbon from gas turbines, announced the opening of an office in Houston. The company’s CEO, Wendy Lam, told the Houston Business Journal that Houston’s close relationship with Norway, the region’s infrastructure and access to talent were key factors in their decision to move to Houston. Lam also cited favorable U.S. policies that make CCS technology more financially viable than in Europe.

One of the region’s largest projects is a joint venture involving Chevron, Equinor and TotalEnergies called the Bayou Bend Carbon Capture and Storage Project along the Texas Gulf Coast between Houston and Port Arthur. Bayou Bend has the potential to become one of the nation’s largest CCS sites for industrial emitters, with underground storage capacity for one billion tons of carbon dioxide. Worley, an Australia-based engineering firm with its main U.S. office in Houston, was selected to design and evaluate the CO2 collection, handling and sequestration facilities for the project.

Chevron, a partner in the region’s HyVelocity Hub, is exploring the possibility of integrating its hydrogen efforts with the Bayou Bend CCS project, although no official announcement has been made.

HyVelocity Hub partners Ørsted and ExxonMobil were recently selected by the U.S. Department of Energy through its $6 billion Industrial Demonstration Program to receive federal funding for their decarbonization projects.

A subsidiary of Denmark-based Ørsted, which opened its first office in Houston earlier this year, could receive up to $100 million in DOE funding to support the development of the Star e-methanol plant located on the Texas Gulf Coast, which will use the captured CO2. to create up to 300,000 tonnes of e-methanol per year.

Meanwhile, ExxonMobil, which moved its headquarters to the Houston area in 2022, could receive up to $331.9 million under its $6 billion industrial demonstration program for its abatement project of carbon from the Baytown olefins plant. It plans to use hydrogen rather than natural gas to produce ethylene.

Exxon has become more involved in CCS infrastructure since its acquisition of Denbury Inc. in 2023, which involved major assets including the largest CO2 pipeline network in the United States and ten onshore carbon sequestration sites.

Partnership with EnLink Midstream LLC allows Exxon to explore other CCS opportunities along the Gulf Coast, including the Houston Ship Channel and the Port Arthur-Beaumont area, which are considered high sources of emissions of CO2.

This follows the company’s proposed $100 billion collaborative carbon capture project in the Houston area in 2021. Exxon estimates the proposed CCS hub could capture and store 50 million tons of CO2 per year by 2030 and 100 million tonnes by 2040.

Other major energy players, such as SLB, are moving into the CCS space and looking to increase their investments in carbon capture.

In March, SLB announced an agreement to acquire a majority stake in Aker Carbon Capture, a Norwegian carbon capture company whose proprietary CCS technology serves a wide range of industries including cement, bio-upgrading waste, the transformation of gas into electricity. and blue hydrogen segments.

“For CCUS to have the intended impact on achieving global net-zero emissions ambitions, it will need to be multiplied by 100 to 200 times in less than three decades. We are excited to create this company with (Aker Carbon Capture) to accelerate the deployment of carbon capture technologies that will change the economics of carbon capture in high-emitting industrial sectors,” said Olivier Le Peuch, CEO of SLB , in a press release.

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