On Thursday, Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) announced it will be restarting its LaBarge carbon capture project in Wyoming after a 2-year delay. The LaBarge project had been put on hold due to the pandemic, but work on it is set to resume in 2022.
Right now, Exxon is starting to take bids for engineering, construction and procurement before a final investment decision can be reached.
Early estimates say that the cost of this expansion of the LaBarge carbon capture project will come up to around $400 million. And once complete, the facility in Wyoming is expected to capture 1 million tons of CO2 per year.
Exxon plans to have the project fully operational by 2025 – two years later than what was initially planned. The announcement comes among pressure from investors to rethink the oil giant’s climate strategy.
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And only a day before it was made, CEO Darren Woods shared his vision for the company’s low-carbon future, in which Exxon intends to remain one of the world’s major fossil fuel suppliers but will lead the oil and gas industry to reduced emissions and more sustainable practices.
Wood said the company is very conscious of the unprecedented times we live in and the pressing need in society to achieve lower-carbon emissions.
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Earlier this year, Exxon proposed a $100 billion investment plan for a carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in Houston, Texas. The captured emissions from industrial plants are to be buried deep underground in the Gulf of Mexico.
The oil and gas corporation is currently also developing several carbon capture projects in Europe with the intention to announce future projects in Asia soon as well.
