The co-CEO of Enterprise Products Partners (NYSE:EPD) Jim Teague has stated that the company’s network could be repurposed for transporting captured carbon from industrial sites.
Mr Teague was speaking at the World Petroleum Congress on Wednesday and highlighted the biggest hurdle for this business to be developed is that it needs to show promise of revenue.
“We’re not going to do it for the hell of it. There has to be a business there,” he said during a panel at the Congress.
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At the same conference, the chairman of energy company Tellurian (NYSE:TELL) was on the same wavelength.
He confirmed that “everyone agrees that carbon sequestration would be a good thing” but pointed out how long project permits take, as well as the lack of clarity on what the price of carbon is.
The US is lagging behind the European Union, China and Canada where markets for carbon have a head start and different infrastructure projects are under way.
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There are however efforts on the state level to achieve a market-based price on carbon. Twelve states have carbon trading policies in place. Chief among them is the California Carbon Market, where carbon is traded at $27.6 at the time of writing.
Occidental and Exxon have already signalled that they see carbon capture and management as viable business options. But it seems the infrastructure players like Enterprise Products and others in the energy sector still aren’t convinced that carbon capture can be a profitable business.
