Carbon capture and storage

Oxy and Total’s Carbon-Capture Project Takes Next Step With US Government Funding

Phase 1 involved a feasibility study for a facility capable of capturing 750,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. The next phase will explore building a facility capable of more than twice that amount.

Cement factory
Cement factories are considered one of the largest industrial sources of carbon emissions globally.
Source: Getty Images

A carbon-capture consortium that includes Houston-based independent Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) and Paris-based supermajor Total has been awarded $1.5 million in funding from the US Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory. Other partners include carbon-capture engineering firm Svante and the global cement maker LafargeHolcim.

In June, the consortium wrapped up its first feasibility study for the in the LH CO2MENT Colorado Project which involved a commercial-scale facility designed to capture 750,000 tonnes of CO2 annually from a cement plant in Florence, Colorado.

The new funding will support further research and development of a much larger facility that can capture 2 million tonnes annually directly from the cement plant and its natural gas-fired generator.

Oxy, which is involved in the project via its low-carbon venture arm, will then purchase the captured emissions as part of its enhanced oil recovery operations.

A major focus of the proposed facility will be the performance of Svante’s “solid sorbent” technology which captures CO2 directly from the cement kiln. The consortium describes it as a “non-intrusive, end-of-the-pipe solution” that is also cost effective at the industrial scale.

In addition to the Colorado project, Total is involved with Svante and LafargeHolcim in a similar project that is seeking to capture CO2 and imbedded into the cement.