Oxy Acquires Carbon Removal Tech Startup Holocene

Direct air capture technology startup Holocene announced that it has been acquired by energy giant Occidental (Oxy), marking the latest in a series of moves by Oxy to deepen its capabilities in DAC carbon removal. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

DAC technology, listed by the IEA as a key carbon removal option in the transition to a net-zero energy system, extracts CO2 directly from the atmosphere for use as a raw material or permanently removed when combined with storage. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), scenarios that limit warming to 1.5°C include carbon dioxide removal methods scaling to billions of tons of removal annually over the coming decades, with DAC positioned to potentially account for a significant portion of the total.

Founded in 2022 by Anca Timofte, Keeton Ross, and Tobias Rüesch, Knoxville, Tennessee-based Holocene provides a scalable DAC solution using a liquid-based, low-temperature, thermochemical approach aimed at significantly lowering the cost of DAC carbon removal. The company’s solution uses amino acids and other organic compounds to pull CO2 from the atmosphere, which is then concentrated and heated to low temperatures to create a pure stream of CO2 for transport and permanent underground storage.

In September 2024, Holocene announced an agreement with Google for the delivery of 100,000 tons of carbon removal credits, with the deal marking the lowest-ever price on record for DAC-based removal, at $100 per ton.

Oxy has invested significantly in direct air capture, including through the $1.1 billion acquisition in 2023 of DAC technology company Carbon Engineering. Oxy, through its DAC subsidiary 1PointFive is currently developing a series of carbon removal and sequestration projects in the U.S., including STRATOS in Texas, which it expects to be the largest DAC facility in the world to date, designed to capture 500,000 tonnes of CO2 per year when fully operational. Earlier this month, the company announced that it has been awarded permits by the EPA to sequester CO2 captured from STRATOS in deep underground wells.

In a post announcing the acquisition, Anca Timofte, CEO and Co-founder of Holocene, said:

"The dream to see our liquid, low-temperature DAC technology deployed at scale is that much closer to becoming reality.

I’m proud of the team and of all our work in getting here, and grateful that Oxy recognized our potential and the possible synergies between our technologies."