ExxonMobil Enters Into Largest-of-Its-Kind Emissions Capture Agreement

IRVING, Texas — ExxonMobil and CF Industries, a global manufacturer of hydrogen and nitrogen products, have entered into what the parties describe as the “the largest commercial agreement of its kind” to capture and permanently store up to 2 million metric tons of CO2 emissions annually in Louisiana. 

To bring their goal to fruition, CF Industries plans to invest $200 million to build a CO2 dehydration and compression unit at its Donaldsonville, Louisiana, manufacturing plant.

At the same time, ExxonMobil will develop a 125,000-acre CO2 storage location in Vermilion Parish with EnLink Midstream providing the pipeline network between the two facilities.

According to the companies, the 2 million metric tons of emissions captured annually will be equivalent to replacing approximately 700,000 gasoline-powered cars with electric vehicles.

“CF Industries is pleased to partner with ExxonMobil through this definitive CO2 offtake agreement, accelerating our decarbonization journey and supporting Louisiana’s and the country’s climate goals,” said Tony Will, president and chief executive officer, CF Industries Holdings, Inc. in a written statement.

“This agreement also ensures that we remain at the forefront of the developing clean energy economy. As we leverage proven carbon capture and sequestration technology, CF Industries will be first-to-market with a significant volume of blue ammonia. This will enable us to supply this low-carbon energy source to hard-to-abate industries that increasingly view it as critical to their own decarbonization goals.”

Dan Ammann, president of ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions, said the project represents “large-scale, real-world progress on the journey to decarbonize the global economy.

“ExxonMobil is providing a critical and scalable solution to reduce CO2 emissions, and we’re ready to offer the same service to other large industrial customers in the state of Louisiana and around the world. We’re encouraged by the momentum we see building for projects of this kind, thanks to supportive policies such as the Inflation Reduction Act,” Ammann said.

“CF Industries expects to market up to 1.7 million metric tons of blue ammonia annually. A chemical process is considered “blue” when CO2 emissions are captured before their release into the air, making the process more carbon-neutral. 

Demand for blue ammonia is expected to grow significantly as a decarbonized energy source for hard-to-abate industries, both for its hydrogen content and as a fuel itself, because ammonia’s components, nitrogen and hydrogen, do not emit carbon when combusted.

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and at https://twitter.com/DanMcCue.