Decarbon Daily - Series A Funding & Carbon Capture Pilots

Low-carbon plans at Oxy

With the passing of the infrastructure bill, companies are evaluating options to fund and implement low-carbon solutions to meet ESG goals. One option for carbon capture is the 45Q tax credit.

Vicki Hollub, President and CEO of Occidental Petroleum described the importance of the 45Q tax credit:

It has to happen, and the only way that it can happen and at the pace that's needed for the world is for the U.S. to get on board with the supporting it. And the U.S. has the strength and the capability to do that. And the best way to do it is through 45Q and direct pay 45Q. So, you're right on that. That that's incredibly important to us. Otherwise, the U.S. will not achieve the targets that we've set with even the prior Paris Accord, much less what's happening in Glasgow right now. So 45Q has to happen and really needs to be direct pay. Otherwise, we're going to struggle to be successful.

A future price for carbon? Hollub described the inbound requests that Oxy is getting from other companies. To reduce emissions and reach sustainability goals, other companies must purchase carbon offsets. Hollub stated:

But with respect to what we're doing, there is going to be a price for carbon because there's a lot of commitment from corporations now to get to net neutral. Everybody I think realizes at some point that if we don't achieve our goals through the incentives like 45Q, then there is going to have be some price mechanism on carbon to make it happen. And so, what we're seeing, is a lot of corporations are trying to get ahead of that. A lot of corporations are starting to feel that there is a social license to operate and that to have that, there has -- they have to proactively start seeking CO2 credit offsets to become net neutral. United has been one as you know, that we've announced that they want to do that and they are proactively committing to dollars to the building of the Direct Air Capture plus the purchase of the oil that would be the net zero oil.

Carbon capture at EOG

EOG is committing to reducing emissions and stated that 2-3% of the budget, about $80-120 million, will be allocated to ESG projects.

According to Ken Boedeker, one of those projects is a carbon capture pilot:

We're looking at carbon capture right now to significantly reduce our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions at this point. That business is a much lower return business than what we see with our development that we have. So we'll keep an eye on that but our real goal for carbon capture is just reducing our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions which we've made significant progress on in the last several years.

Denbury Announces CO2 Projects

During Denbury's earnings call last week the company announced two CO2 projects:
1. CO2 Transport and storage project in Southeast Texas starting in 2025
2. CO2 Transport and storage from renewalble biofuel plant

Nik Wood, SVP of Carbon Solutions stated:

This morning, we're excited to announce two new agreements. The first is a significant storage site development in Texas and the second is a new CO2 transportation and storage agreement. I'll spend most of my time on the call today talking about these new agreements. We reached a significant milestone with our first dedicated storage site that we plan to jointly develop with Gulf Coast Midstream Partners. The project site is located on the western edge of our infrastructure in Southeast Texas, with the potential to inject up to 9 million metric tons of CO2 per year and ultimately store upto 400 million metric tons.

The project allows the company to continue to build out infrastructure needed to decarbonize the industrial complexes along the Gulf Coast.

Separately, we've also signed a 25 year agreement for the exclusive rights to transport and store CO2 from a renewable biofuel plant on the Gulf Coast. At the request of the plant owner, we are limited on what we can share about this deal for now, but we are looking forward to sharing more at the appropriate time.

Inside this Issue

🚀 Announcing Helion's Latest Fundraise of $500 Million
💸 Yotta Energy Raises $13M in Series A Funding
🔋 B2U's Plan to Transform More Depleted Electric Car Batteries into Solar Storage
💰 HV Capital and Keen Venture Partners Invest USD10 million in Plan A's Carbon Accounting and ESG Management Platform
🛢 OXY - Occidental Petroleum - Earnings Call Transcript Q3 2021
☁️ DEN - Denbury Resources - Earnings Call Transcript Q3 2021