#Exxon carbon capture technology license

In just the past year, the new outfit has made deals with a handful of industrial emitters throughout the Gulf Coast to manage their carbon dioxide emissions. But after activist investors won three seats on Exxon’s board in 2021, the company launched a Low Carbon Solutions business focused on carbon capture, clean hydrogen, and biofuels. Exxon has long lagged its peers in even disclosing its carbon footprint, let alone setting targets to reduce it. The carbon collected there was sold to other fossil fuel companies, including Denbury, to inject into depleted oil wells in order to squeeze more crude out of the ground - a technique known as enhanced oil recovery.īut the company has been under increased shareholder pressure over the last several years to do more to reduce its emissions and invest in clean industries.

project consisted of a single site in Wyoming where Exxon processes natural gas. Exxon is starting to take the energy transition seriously.Įxxon has claimed to be a leader in carbon capture for years, but until recently, the company’s only U.S. But when I spoke to experts about what the acquisition of Danbury signaled, three theories emerged about the company’s motivations. Of course, it’s impossible to know Exxon’s intentions without being in the boardroom.

#Exxon carbon capture technology license

But the idea is controversial among many climate advocates who worry that it will serve solely to give Exxon and others license to continue digging up and selling fossil fuels. Some argue that a company like Exxon has the expertise and capital to build this infrastructure, and that carbon management presents a new potential business model for the company. What does it all mean? The Biden administration and many clean energy researchers believe carbon capture may be the only way to reduce emissions from certain sectors like chemical manufacturing, steel making, and cement production - at least in the near term. Now, it suddenly seems to be positioning itself to become this carbon maze’s lead architect. Exxon has espoused its work on carbon capture for years, but the company’s investments have never matched its rhetoric, fueling accusations of greenwashing.

The nearly $5 billion all-stock sale is the biggest “carbon management” deal yet.Ĭarbon management is an emerging industry premised on constructing a labyrinth of factories and pipelines to capture emissions from the smokestacks of industrial facilities, and also directly from the atmosphere, and pump them into the Earth’s crust.

Predictable, stable, cost-effective policies are necessary to incentivize the development and scalability of a wide range of lower-emission technologies across the economy.America’s largest oil and gas company just secured the missing elements for it to become one of the nation’s most powerful players in the nascent carbon capture and storage industry.ĮxxonMobil announced last week that it was purchasing Denbury Inc., giving it access to an extensive network of pipelines for transporting carbon dioxide and land holdings for injecting the pollutant underground.

No single technology on its own can enable society to achieve its lower-emission ambitions.Establishing a market price on carbon will play an important part by providing the needed clarity and stability required to drive investment.ExxonMobil supports policies that promote a stable investment climate for long-term business viability and continues to communicate our positions to policy stakeholders and governments around the world. Public policy decisions are made at all levels of government and have significant effects on our current and future operations. But to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, durable, predictable, market-driven policies are needed to produce the greatest emissions reductions at the lowest cost to society. ExxonMobil’s scientists and engineers are working to develop innovative and scalable solutions to help reduce emissions, with a focus on the highest-emitting and most-difficult-to-decarbonize sectors of the economy: commercial transportation, power generation and heavy industry.