ExxonMobil Corp., EnLink Midstream LLC, and fertilizer manufacturing company CF Industries Holdings Inc. are collaborating to store as much as 2 million tonnes/year (tpy) of industrial CO2 emissions. Emissions from CF Industries’ Ascension Parish, La., complex will be transported through EnLink’s transportation network and stored underground at a 125,000-acre property owned by ExxonMobil in Vermilion Parish, about 100 miles southwest of CF’s complex.
The companies expect project start-up in early 2025. CF Industries recently announced a $198.5 million plan to build a CO2 dehydration and compression unit at its ammonia production plant in Donaldsonville, La. and expects to market up to 1.7 million tpy of blue ammonia.
EnLink suggested that it would use existing infrastructure for the transportation part of the collaboration, cutting both time and cost compared with possible newbuild options.
Louisiana has set a 2050 net-zero CO2 emissions target for the state.
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 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.