Frontier's $11.7M Deal Tests Carbon-to-Rock Storage in UAE

Frontier has signed its first in-situ mineralization (ISM) offtake, an $11.7 million deal for 44.01 to permanently remove 20,932 tonnes of CO₂ between 2028 and 2031. The project will turn biogenic CO₂ into solid rock underground in the UAE. It will test multi-year continuous operation, a key step toward commercial scale.

Frontier is a $1.8 billion advance market commitment to buy permanent carbon removal by 2040. This is also its first purchase in the Middle East. The bigger prize is geographic, because ISM could unlock permanent storage where conventional CCS is economically impractical.

What Did Frontier Actually Buy?

Frontier buyers will pay 44.01 $11.7 million to remove 20,932 tonnes of CO₂ between 2028 and 2031, according to Frontier's October 15, 2026 announcement. 44.01 will source biogenic CO₂ from a biogas upgrader at a UAE wastewater treatment plant. That CO₂ will then be injected into peridotite rock on the country's east coast.

Founding members Stripe, Google, and Shopify joined members Autodesk, H&M Group, and Workday in the purchase. Aledade, Canva, SKIMS, Zendesk, Wise, Skyscanner, and Match Group participated through Watershed, the corporate carbon removal procurement platform partnered with Frontier.

>> In Other News: [x](x)

The deal builds on pre-purchases Stripe and Shopify made from 44.01 in 2022. Frontier had backed 52 carbon removal projects as of December 2025, according to ESG Dive. None used in-situ mineralization until this agreement.

How Does 44.01 Turn CO₂ Into Rock?

44.01 dissolves CO₂ in water and injects it about 1,000 meters underground through a deviated well. The carbonated fluid spreads through naturally fractured peridotite, a magnesium-rich rock. It reacts with magnesium silicate minerals and forms stable solid carbonates within 1 to 3 years.

Once the CO₂ mineralizes, Frontier says the reversal risk is functionally zero. The dissolved fluid is denser than groundwater, so it sinks rather than rises before mineralization begins. Wellhead flow meters, a monitoring well, and geophysical sensors track every step.

Founded in Oman in 2020 and headquartered in London, 44.01 is named after the molecular mass of CO₂. Its earlier pilot with ADNOC in Fujairah mineralized 10 tonnes of CO₂ in under 100 days, ADNOC reported in November 2024.

The Frontier project builds on five 44.01 field pilots in Oman and the UAE. Its Project Hajar with Aircapture won a $1 million XFACTOR award from XPRIZE Carbon Removal in April 2025. It was named the strongest Air category entry in a competition that drew 1,300 teams.

TÜV SÜD and the XPRIZE Carbon Removal board have both completed third-party safety reviews of 44.01's operations.

Why Can ISM Reach Places Conventional CCS Can't?

ISM stores CO₂ in reactive rock close to the source, avoiding long pipelines to distant sedimentary basins. Conventional geologic storage favors large volumes and heavy upfront investment. Frontier notes that permitting a conventional site can take five to ten years.

That math rarely works for smaller sources that produce only tens of thousands of tonnes of CO₂ a year. In the UAE, industrial sources near 44.01's site sit within 50 kilometers of peridotite. Viable conventional storage in the Gulf is more than 300 kilometers away.

Similar reactive rock exists in Oman, Japan, Finland, inland Norway, and along the US Pacific coast. 44.01 is pursuing opportunities in several of these markets, including a Japan partnership with Sumitomo and ENEOS Xplora. Frontier says post-injection monitoring is typically shorter for ISM, because rock can't migrate like a buoyant CO₂ plume.

The same rock can also store industrial emissions. Holcim UAE and 44.01 brought their Fujairah cement capture pilot to full operation in July 2026. The system captures 4 to 4.5 tonnes of CO₂ daily from live cement plant flue gas.

Storing cement-plant CO₂ counts as emissions abatement, not carbon removal. The Frontier deal qualifies as removal because its CO₂ is biogenic. 44.01 is developing both applications on the same storage technology.

44.01 positions mineralization as a complement to conventional storage, not a replacement. It widens the global map of places where permanent CO₂ storage is possible.

>> RELATED: Frontier Secures $915 Million From Google, Anthropic and Tech Buyers to Scale Permanent Carbon Removal

What Is the Frontier Deal Really Testing?

The project will test whether 44.01 can sustain target injection rates continuously over multiple years. It will also measure water requirements and the real cost of continuous operation. Those results will shape the economics of larger projects.

ESG News reports that 44.01 agreed to a data-sharing provision as part of the offtake. Frontier says the multi-year operating data will be shared with the broader community. That could help other developers evaluate and deploy ISM worldwide.

44.01 first announced a direct air capture and mineralization collaboration with Aircapture in 2023. Short injection campaigns like those demonstrated mineralization under pilot conditions. This offtake is about proving the operations.

How Big Could the ISM Storage Opportunity Get?

Frontier estimates that more than 50 million tonnes of UAE industrial CO₂ could be captured and stored through ISM. Globally, similar reactive rock formations could store over 5 billion tonnes of CO₂ every year.

Frontier has steadily backed removal pathways built around existing infrastructure, including a $31.6 million waste-to-energy retrofit offtake with Hafslund Celsio in 2025. Biogenic CO₂ storage is gaining ground elsewhere too. Norway issued the world's first certified biogas BECCS removals in 2026.

Feature (Typical, Site-Dependent)	In-Situ Mineralization (ISM)	Conventional Geologic Storage
CO₂ form underground	Dissolved in water, then solid carbonate	Compressed supercritical fluid
Lock-in timeline	Mineralizes within 1 to 3 years	Relies on caprock integrity over time
Post-injection monitoring	Typically shorter, with quicker site closure	Typically decades, due to buoyant CO₂
Best-fit sources	Smaller, distributed sources near reactive rock	Large volumes with pipeline access
Site development	Can avoid long-distance pipelines	Permitting can take 5 to 10 years
UAE example	Peridotite within 50 km of industrial sources	Viable Gulf storage 300+ km away

The 44.01 deal adds a new storage option to that toolkit. It could serve sources where conventional storage is economically impractical.

At 20,932 tonnes, this offtake is modest in volume. Its real value is the multi-year operating record it will create. If that record holds up, Frontier's $11.7 million could help open permanent storage to sites sitting on reactive rock worldwide.

For ongoing coverage of carbon removal, BECCS, and corporate CDR procurement, subscribe to Decarbonfuse.com.