ExxonMobil has signed a Memorandum of Understanding to participate in the recently announced Acorn carbon capture and storage project (CCS) in Scotland. The project plans to capture and store approximately 5-6 million tons of CO2 per year by 2030 from gas terminals at the St Fergus complex at Peterhead, Scotland, which includes ExxonMobil’s SEGAL joint venture gas terminal.

 

The Acorn Project has the potential to provide more than half of the 10 million tons per year of CO2 storage targeted by the UK government and when expanded has the potential to store more than 20 million tons of CO2 emissions per year by the mid-2030s.

 

Joe Blommaert, President of Low Carbon Solutions at ExxonMobil, said, “ExxonMobil has more than 30 years’ experience in CCS technology and is advancing plans for more than 20 new CCS opportunities around the world. We are pleased to support the Acorn Project in the deployment of CCS, one of the most important technologies required to achieve society’s climate goals.”

 

ExxonMobil also said it joined NECCUS, an alliance of industry, government and academic experts committed to reducing carbon emissions from industrial facilities in Scotland.

 

ExxonMobil’s membership will help the alliance explore the potential of technology-driven solutions to reduce emissions by drawing on the company’s extensive global experience with carbon capture and storage. NECCUS members include the Scottish government, four leading Scottish universities and several industry partners.

 

“Our membership in NECCUS and our involvement with Acorn underscores our commitment to addressing the dual challenge of meeting the world’s energy needs while reducing emissions from our operations,” said Blommaert. “As a world leader in the development and use of carbon capture and storage, we will work with the alliance to identify how this technology can play a pivotal role in reducing Scotland’s emissions.”

 

“NECCUS welcomes ExxonMobil to our alliance,” said Mike Smith, CEO of NECCUS. “Decarbonising industrial emissions will be a challenging but essential part of meeting the national 2045 net zero target. We believe Scotland is well placed to deliver on technologies such as carbon capture and storage, and hydrogen, which are necessary to achieve a net zero industrial cluster. Collaboration across the organisations within NECCUS will be essential to this ambition, and the experience ExxonMobil brings will enhance this collaboration.”

 

In March, ExxonMobil established a new Low Carbon Solutions business to commercialize low-emission technologies. It will initially focus on CCS, the process of capturing CO2 that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere from industrial activity, and injecting it into deep geologic formations for safe, secure and permanent storage.

 

ExxonMobil is the industry leader in CCS technology and has more than 30 years of experience capturing carbon. The company has an equity share in about one-fifth of global CO2 capture capacity and has captured approximately 40 percent of all the captured anthropogenic CO2 in the world.

 

The International Energy Agency projects that CCS could mitigate up to 15 percent of global emissions by 2040 and the authoritative U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that global de-carbonisation efforts could be twice as costly without CCS.