US supermajor ExxonMobil has entered into what's being touted as the largest-of-its-kind commercial agreement with CF Industries and EnLink Midstream on a new emissions-reduction project in Vermillion Parish, Louisiana.
The Illinois-based CF Industries is a manufacturer of hydrogen and nitrogen products working to decarbonize its ammonia production network. It has a goal to market up to 1.7 mtpa of blue ammonia.
To help meet this goal, the company is investing $200 million to build a CO2 dehydration and compression unit at its Donaldsonville, Louisiana, facility to enable captured CO2 to be transported and stored.
ExxonMobil, under an agreement announced on 12 October, will transport the captured CO2 from the complex and permanently store it in a secure geologic storage site. ExxonMobil said it will develop a 125,000-acre storage location in Vermillion Parish.
ExxonMobil also signed an agreement with EnLink Midstream to use its transportation network to deliver the CO2 to the permanent storage site.
The 2 mtpa of emissions captured will be equivalent to replacing approximately 700,000 gasoline-powered cars with electric vehicles, according to ExxonMobil.
“This landmark project represents large-scale, real-world progress on the journey to decarbonize the global economy,” said Dan Ammann, president of ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions.
“ExxonMobil is providing a critical and scalable solution to reduce CO2 emissions, and we’re ready to offer the same service to other large industrial customers in the state of Louisiana and around the world. We’re encouraged by the momentum we see building for projects of this kind, thanks to supportive policies such as the Inflation Reduction Act.”
CF Industries said demand for blue ammonia is expected to grow significantly as a decarbonized energy source for both its hydrogen content and as a fuel itself, because ammonia’s components—nitrogen and hydrogen—do not emit carbon when combusted.
A chemical process is considered “blue” when CO2 emissions are captured before their release into the air, making the process more carbon-neutral.
“CF Industries is pleased to partner with ExxonMobil through this definitive CO2 offtake agreement, accelerating our decarbonization journey and supporting Louisiana’s and the country’s climate goals,” said Tony Will, president and CEO, CF Industries Holdings.
“This agreement also ensures that we remain at the forefront of the developing clean energy economy. As we leverage proven carbon capture and sequestration technology, CF Industries will be first-to-market with a significant volume of blue ammonia. This will enable us to supply this low-carbon energy source to hard-to-abate industries that increasingly view it as critical to their own decarbonization goals.”
