CEOs of Occidental and Worley on Building World’s Largest “Direct Air Capture” Facility and the Burgeoning Industry of Carbon Capture - Seite 2

“We’ve been handling CO2 for enhanced oil recovery projects in the Permian Basin for 40 years. Today we are the largest handler of CO2 for enhanced oil recovery in the world. We have a lot of experience with it. About 10 years ago we started looking at how we get our CO2 and realized that with the world changing and with what the world needs to happen today, that it’s best to pull our CO2 from anthropogenic or atmospheric sources to replace the organic CO2 that we had been previously using. It’s going to generate value for our shareholders by using it in enhanced oil recovery projects. For aviation and maritime fuels, this is critical to happen.”

“In addition to using net zero or net negative barrels of oil, we also can sequester it in saline reservoirs and-or convert it into products. One of the products we are excited about is the conversion of CO2 into bioethylene. To be able to provide bioethylene also makes our products from the chemical industry ultimately low carbon or no carbon as well.”

Chris Ashton: “Direct air capture and the possibilities of it impacting positively where the world needs to go is tremendous. It’s a huge opportunity to address what are some of the industries that are in the near term very hard to abate—aviation, cement, steel. What direct air capture does is allow us to address some of the really big challenges the world is facing when it comes to decarbonization and put into that the enduring capability that we have.”

• On the opportunities for scaling direct air capture:
  
  Vicki Hollub: “We expect to be at [Final Investment Decision] in Q1 of next year, then start construction by the end of next year. So far, it’s looking like that’s doable. It should be up and in operation in 2024.”
  
  “Our intent is to continue the construction [of direct air capture facilities]. We have announced that we will build up to 12 facilities in the Permian Basin, but we ultimately want to build facilities in the DJ basin in Colorado, the Powder River in Wyoming, and we want to expand to our international operations as well. There needs to be a lot of these built over time. That’s the only way we can cap global warming at 1.5 degrees. This has to happen in a big way.”
  
  Chris Ashton: “If you look at the component parts of direct air capture, they’re all established. It’s about bringing together the component parts of it in a way that’s new. The economics are clearly very important. One of the big contributors to addressing the economic viability of this is the fact that we are working together in an integrated, innovative way. So many inefficiencies exist in a way that traditionally supply chains interact. We’ve taken a big step forward in the way we’re working together.”