Exxon calls for carbon price, working on CCS projects across Asia
An Exxon fuel station is seen in Houston, Texas, U.S., April 30, 2019. REUTERS/Loren Elliott
SINGAPORE, Oct 25 (Reuters) – Exxon Mobil Corp is pursuing carbon seize storage (CCS) hubs throughout Asia and has began talks with some international locations with potential storage choices for carbon dioxide, the corporate’s head of low carbon options mentioned on Monday.
Certainly one of Exxon’s key tasks is to construct CCS hubs in Southeast Asia, just like one being inbuilt Houston, Texas, ExxonMobil Low Carbon Options President Joe Blommaert instructed Reuters.
CCS traps emissions and buries them underground however is just not but on the commercialisation stage.
CCS advocates, together with oil majors and the Worldwide Power Company, see the expertise as being important to assist meet internet zero emissions and key to unlocking large-scale financial hydrogen manufacturing, though critics say CCS will prolong the lifetime of soiled fossil fuels.
Melbourne-based International CCS Institute mentioned in October that surged 50% during the last 9 months.
For CCS to take off, a clear carbon worth and cross-border pricing adjustment techniques shall be essential to allow CO2 to be captured in a single nation and saved elsewhere, Blommaert mentioned in an interview forward of the Singapore Worldwide Power Week.
“That is why a clear worth of carbon is so essential, that it’s a sturdy mechanism, that it’s agnostic to what sort of expertise that goes … and that it really works throughout borders as a result of emissions have no idea any borders,” Blommaert mentioned, including he expects discussions of to happen in Southeast Asia.
“As a result of a lot of the world would not have carbon pricing, there is a danger that some operators will transfer to international locations that don’t but worth emissions,” he instructed the convention.
Final month, the U.S. vitality main mentioned 11 firms have agreed to start discussing plans that would result in capturing and storing as much as 50 million tonnes per yr (tpy) of CO2 within the .
“Not like in Houston, the storage capability right here is just not near the areas with the best emissions,” Blommaert mentioned.
“That is why we have been finding out the idea of inserting CO2 seize hubs in a few of Asia’s heavy industrial areas akin to right here in Singapore after which connecting them to CO2 storage places elsewhere within the area,” he mentioned, including that CO2 might be transported by way of pipelines or ships.
Southeast Asia’s industrial CO2 emissions exceeded 4 billion tpy, Blommaert mentioned, citing 2019 knowledge from the Worldwide Power Company.
ExxonMobil has listed Singapore, house to the main’s largest refining-petrochemical centre globally, as one in all its CCS tasks. Nonetheless, Singapore doesn’t have appropriate CO2 storage websites, a current CCS examine commissioned by Singapore authorities confirmed.
LOCATIONS
One other examine by the Singapore Power Centre, partly based by ExxonMobil, estimated almost 300 billion tonnes of CO2 storage capability in depleted oil and fuel fields and saline formations in Southeast Asia, Blommaert mentioned.
Nations within the area with potential storage websites embrace Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia the place ExxonMobil has oil and fuel manufacturing services. The U.S. main additionally operates a joint refining-petrochemical advanced in jap China Fujian with Sinopec and Saudi Aramco.
“We proceed to guage all choices all over the world, and that features a few of these places,” Blommaert mentioned, with out naming international locations.
“When you have a really excessive focus of carbon dioxide stream that can symbolize, probably a decrease price (for CCS),” Blommaert mentioned.
“The marketplace for CO2 is fairly restricted if you put it into that scale, and subsequently storage of CO2 long run is important.”
Reporting by Florence Tan in Singapore; extra reporting by Christina Bernadette in Jakarta, Sonali Paul in Australia, Sabrina Valle and Gary McWilliams in Houston; Enhancing by Lincoln Feast.
:
