Exxon calls for CO2 price, working on CCS project

Exxon Mobil Corp is pursuing carbon capture storage (CCS) hubs across Asia and has started talks with some countries with potential storage options for carbon dioxide, the company’s head of low carbon solutions said on Monday.

One of Exxon’s key projects is to build CCS hubs in Southeast Asia, similar to one being proposed in Houston, Texas, ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions President Joe Blommaert told Reuters.

CCS traps emissions and buries them underground but is not yet at the commercialisation stage.

CCS advocates, including oil majors and the International Energy Agency, see the technology as being essential to help meet net zero emissions and key to unlocking large-scale economic hydrogen production, although critics say CCS will extend the life of dirty fossil fuels.

Melbourne-based Global CCS Institute said in October that global plans to build CCS projects surged 50 per cent over the last nine months.

For CCS to take off, a transparent carbon price and cross-border pricing adjustment systems will be necessary to enable CO2 to be captured in one country and stored elsewhere, Blommaert said in an interview ahead of the Singapore International Energy Week.

“That’s why a transparent value of carbon is so important, that it is a durable mechanism.”