Last week, during a quarterly earnings call, Occidental Petroleum announced that its ambitious Stratos Direct Air Capture (DAC) facility has hit an unexpected hindrance that will delay its development, E&E News’ Climatewire reports.
Initially envisioned to come online by the end of 2024—a deadline later stretched out to the end of 2025—the Stratos project is expected to become the world’s largest DAC facility once fully operational.
According to Occidental’s chief operating officer Richard Jackson, currently, the construction of Stratos is mostly finished. The company had started testing the first of two Stratos units, concluding that the technology and process unit operations are performing as expected.
In a statement, Jackson goes on to explain that after completing these phase one commissioning activities, Occidental identified an issue related to non-process components of the facility, which are not related to the technology.
“We are currently evaluating the repair timeline and assessing the impact on the operation schedule, and will provide an update next quarter,” he added.
The work on Stratos was launched back in 2023, and the following year the facility secured funding support from asset management giant BlackRock. As shared in a recent disclosure filing by Occidental, since then, the cost of the project has increased by $100 million to $1.2 billion.
In August 2025, Occidental’s Chief Executive Officer Vicky Hollub announced that the company is planning on launching operations at the Stratos DAC facility towards the end of 2025.
Once completed and fully online, Stratos is expected to be able to tackle 500,000 metric tons of atmospheric CO2 annually, surpassing the current largest operational DAC deployment in the United States capable of removing 36,000 tons per year.
Relevant: Occidental’s Stratos DAC Hub To Launch Operations By The End Of 2025
Last month, Occidental released a statement, informing the public that Vicki Hollub is retiring as President and CEO on June 1, 2026, naming Chief Operating Officer Richard Jackson as her successor.
This leadership switch and the Stratos delay are happening against a backdrop of uncertainty for Occidental’s other major DAC initiative, known as the South Texas DAC hub.
Having secured a $500 million award in matching funds by the Biden administration back in 2023, the South Texas DAC hub was rumored to be on a list of cancelled awards put together by President Trump’s administration towards the end of 2025.
An announcement released last month highlighted that the Trump administration will preserve or modify 2,000 awards previously marked for cancellation, including the South Texas DAC hub, with details yet to come on the exact type of support that will be provided.
Read more: Trump Administration Preserves Federal Funding For US DAC And Hydrogen Hubs
