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New wave of CCS ambition: Ten large-scale projects announced
29th October 2019
The Global CCS Institute announced that ten large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects have been added to its global database.
Eight of these new major CCS projects are located in the United States and two respectively in the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. The new projects, particularly in the United States, are the result of increased policy confidence.
With this announcement, there are now a total of 51 large-scale CCS facilities globally – 19 in operation, four under construction, and 28 in various stages of development. Together, the 51 facilities have an estimated capture capacity of around 96 million tonnes of CO2 per annum.
As part of its work, the Global CCS Institute identifies and tracks large-scale CCS projects around the world. The new CCS projects cover a diverse set of applications such as ammonia production, ethanol production, gas-fired power generation, coal-fired power, and three integrated commercial storage hubs. CO2 storage hubs, which can store large amounts of CO2, remove barriers to CCS investment and help to bring down costs.
In the US, the new wave of projects is the result of a combination of sustained government support for CCS deployment and progressive incentive mechanisms triggering private sector action. These include the 45Q tax credit and the eligibility of CCS to receive credits under California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). The project update also comes on the heels of the US Department of Energy announcing $110 million in federal funding for CCS, including support for Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) Studies for nine CCS projects.
Two of the projects added were announced by Oxy Low Carbon Ventures, which already operates the Century Plant CCS project. They include capturing the CO2 from two ethanol facilities, as well as the largest Direct Air Capture project to date, aimed at capturing 1 Mtpa of CO2. The projects are expected to be designed to be eligible for both 45Q and the LCFS. In addition to the projects it is leading, the company also announced a letter of intent for a CO2 offtake agreement with a carbon-negative fuel production facility recently.
In the UK, the Clean Gas Project located in the North East of England aims to capture CO2 emissions from gas-fired power generation and local industrial emitters. The project could be operational by 2023 and is expected to become the UK’s first commercial full-scale CCS project. The project is supported by OGCI Climate Investments and backed by six oil and gas global companies.
In the Middle East, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) is adding a second CCS plant to its portfolio, as part of its efforts to accelerate CCS deployment within its business by six-fold over the next ten years. The company has also been operating the world’s first commercial CCS project on a steel plant since 2016.
This new wave of CCS facilities under development shows the growing momentum around the technology and its role in supporting the energy transition. The learnings from these projects have the potential to reduce costs of the technology, lead to a commercialization pathway and accelerate innovation.
Large scale CCS Facilities in construction and advanced development
| Wabash CO2 Sequestration | Wabash Valley Resources LLC aims to develop an ammonia plant with near-zero CO2 emissions using a repurposed integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant in Indiana, USA. The facility will capture 1.5 to 1.75 Mtpa CO2 for dedicated geological storage in the Wabash CarbonSAFE CO2 storage hub. |
| Abu Dhabi CCS Phase 2 - Natural gas processing plant | Abu Dhabi National Oil Company is developing its second CCUS facility in the United Arab Emirates. It will capture 1.9 to 2.3 Mtpa of CO2 from its gas processing plant for EOR. Both the Abu Dhabi Phase 1 (CO2 capture from the Emirates Steel Industries steel plant) and Abu Dhabi Phase 2 facilities will store CO2 in the same reservoir. |
| Dry Fork Integrated Commercial Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) | The Basin Electric Power Cooperative aims to capture 3.0 Mtpa CO2 from the 385 MW Dry Fork coal-fired power station in Wyoming, USA. They are targeting adjacent geological storage formations currently being studied by Wyoming CarbonSAFE. The Cooperative is also considering EOR as a potential CO2 storage pathway, utilising nearby CO2 pipeline networks and EOR operations. |
| CarbonSAFE Illinois – Macon County | This project seeks to establish a 50+ million tonne commercial geological storage hub in Illinois, USA. Adjacent power plants, such as Prairie State Generation (816 MWe, coal-fired power plant, 10 Mtpa CO2) which has been awarded a full-scale FEED study, and regional ethanol plants are potential CO2 sources. |
| Project Tundra | The Minnkota Power Cooperative is planning the retrofit of a 3.1 to 3.6 Mtpa CO2 capture plant to the Unit 2 Milton R. Young coal-fired power station (455 MWe) in North Dakota USA. They are initially targeting dedicated geological storage sites. The North Dakota CarbonSAFE Storage Hub is studying the future potential for the utilisation of CO2 from this facility for EOR. |
| Integrated Mid-Continent Stacked Carbon Storage Hub | The Integrated Midcontinent Stacked Carbon Storage Hub involves developing a commercial-scale CO2 storage hub in Nebraska and Kansas. The storage hub will form part of an integrated CO2 collection, transportation and storage infrastructure which will enable the collection of CO2 from the dense concentration of ethanol plants, power plants and refinery. |
| OXY and White Energy Ethanol EOR Facility | Occidental Petroleum Corporation and White Energy proposes to capture CO2 from White Energy’s two ethanol facilities in Hereford and Plainview, Texas. The captured CO2 will be stored via EOR operations at Occidental’s oil fields in Permian Basin. |
| The Clean Gas Project | The Clean Gas Project will use natural gas to generate power, with CO2 captured and transported by pipeline for storage in a formation under the Southern North Sea. The infrastructure created would enable industrial clusters in Teesside and elsewhere to capture and store CO2 from their processes. |
| OXY and Carbon Engineering Direct Air Capture and EOR Facility | Oxy Low Carbon Ventures, LLC and Carbon Engineering proposes a joint project of the world’s largest DAC and sequestration facility, with a capacity of 0.5 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) CO2 capture capacity. The captured CO2 is planned to be used in Occidental’s EOR operations in the Permian Basin. |
| Project ECO2S: Early CO2 Storage Complex in Kemper County | Project ECO2S aims to establish a CO2 storage site with a storage capacity of approximately one billion metric tons in a 12,000-hectare storage complex near the Kemper County Energy Facility in Kemper County, Mississippi which could serve as a regional CO2 storage hub for regional power and industrial CO2 point sources. |