Oxy Low Carbon Ventures (OLCV) – the subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum (NYSE: OXY) that develops low carbon technologies including carbon capture, utilization, and storage, announced on Monday it selected engineering company Worley to design a low carbon fuels manufacturing facility in Canada that uses direct air capture.
The facility is expected to be the first commercial-scale project of this kind. It will use Carbon Engineering’s direct air capture technology AIR TO FUELS™ for the production of fuel from captured CO2. The plant is scheduled to make up to 100 million liters (26.4 million gallons) of low carbon fuel annually for the local Canadian market.
The construction is projected to begin in 2023 and be operational by 2026. Oxy aims to serve a market niche that helps companies reduce their carbon footprint, especially hard-to-decarbonize industries like marine, aviation, rail, and truck transportation.
In October, the Canadian clean energy company, Huron Clean Energy announced it will be working together with Oxy Low Carbon Ventures and Carbon Engineering for the construction of the large-scale fuels production facility in British Columbia, Canada utilizing direct air capture. Now the companies are expanding on their partnerships with Worley.
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“We are proud to partner with Carbon Engineering and Huron on the Air To Fuels project and pleased that Worley will join the team,” said Richard Jackson, president over operations for Oxy.
“We believe that’s a gap that nobody else is filling…The transition will take some time, but over the next 10 to 15 years, I think we’ll make a lot of progress toward becoming a carbon management company and a go-to company for those that need (carbon) offsets,” said Oxy CEO Vicki Hollub regarding the company’s carbon capture ambitions.
American petroleum companies like Oxy are choosing to invest in carbon capture and storage facilities in order to keep fossil fuels viable in a low carbon economy. In Europe, though, there is a tendency for companies to be responding to climate change mitigation by shifting investments from fossil fuels to renewable energy power like wind and solar.
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The partnership between the four companies is of significance for direct air capture commercial deployment and helps the industry develop its potential and prove whether it is viable.
