Kenya's Rift Valley Hosts Landmark DAC-to-Storage Injection, Placing Africa on the Carbon Removal Map

Kenya has quietly made history. Octavia Carbon, the Global South's first direct air capture (DAC) company, has become only the fourth DAC company in the world known to store CO2 underground, following a successful first injection test conducted in partnership with geological storage startup Cella Mineral Storage near Lake Elementaita in the Rift Valley.

The test injected approximately 460 kilograms of pure-phase carbon dioxide into reactive basalt rock, achieving an injection rate of around nine kilograms per minute, which Cella says is significantly higher than rates reported by comparable mineralization projects. It's a modest volume, but the significance runs deeper than the numbers.

What makes this particularly notable is the method. Cella used a water-alternating-gas (WAG) technique, a process borrowed from enhanced oil recovery, adapted here for permanent mineral storage. The company injected CO2 in pure phase rather than dissolving it fully in water first, a distinction they say reduces operational costs and could make distributed storage more commercially viable. The test well, drilled to around 2,800 feet, also suggests potential cost advantages over deeper storage sites.

Why Kenya's Geology Matters

The Rift Valley isn't just a convenient location. Its basalt formations are geologically ideal for CO2 mineralization, where injected carbon reacts with calcium and magnesium in the rock to form stable carbonate minerals. That process locks the CO2 away for thousands of years with minimal leakage risk. Octavia's DAC operations are co-located with Cella's storage infrastructure, cutting additional transport and infrastructure costs entirely.

Claire Nelson, Co-founder and CTO of Cella, framed the company's broader ambition clearly: "What we're trying to develop as a company, is a technology that enables distributed, boutique storage solutions to solve the problem of stranded emissions."

That goal matters because most carbon storage projects today rely on centralized hub-and-spoke infrastructure, requiring expensive pipelines to move CO2 from capture sites to storage. Cella's model, if it scales, could allow storage to be deployed closer to the source, making permanent removal accessible to emitters in regions that lack that pipeline network.

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A Milestone for African Climate Tech

This pilot also carries weight for a reason that often goes unspoken in global carbon discussions. Kenyan scientists and technical specialists played a central role in executing this test, contributing local expertise in geology, drilling, and reservoir behavior. Africa is frequently positioned as a recipient of climate solutions, but this project positions Kenya as a source of technical leadership in one of the most demanding areas of climate innovation.

Octavia Carbon, founded in under four years before achieving this milestone, is already working toward the world's second set of carbon credits issued from a DAC project. The company has framed its next steps as raising funds for a second well to support detailed fluid monitoring, with additional injection tests at the Elementaita site planned.

Martin Freimüller, Founder and CEO of Octavia Carbon, has previously described the Rift Valley's storage potential in stark terms, noting that Kenya's volcanic geology alone could hold all of humanity's cumulative CO2 emissions to date.

What Comes Next

The Octavia-Cella partnership is also a finalist with the XPRIZE Carbon Removal initiative, adding competitive visibility to an already technically credible project. With a pilot ramp targeting roughly 1,000 net tonnes of CO2 per year by end-2026, and carbon credit verification through Puro.earth in the pipeline, this project has near-term commercial ambitions that go well beyond proof of concept.

The Elementaita test is still early. But it confirms that DAC-to-geological-storage is no longer confined to Iceland and North America. Kenya is now in that story, and it got there fast.