Letter on carbon: Meet America’s first CCS major

Deal with Calpine shows oil and gas major ExxonMobil has no intention of curbing its CCS ambitions, despite US policy risks and broader scepticism over the energy transition

ExxonMobil has struck a deal with Calpine, America’s largest gas-fired power generator, to transport and permanently store up to 2mt/yr of CO₂ from the Baytown Energy Center near Houston. Calpine is the oil major’s sixth Gulf Coast carbon customer, bringing its total amount of CO₂ under contract to about 16mt/yr. It also has deals in place to take CO₂ from steelmaker Nucor, two facilities operated by ammonia producer CF Industries, hydrogen producer Linde, and oil and gas firm Momentum Midstream. “ExxonMobil’s progress in the Gulf Coast serves as a global case study on how to decarbonize complex energy systems” Welligence In addition to its third-party deals, ExxonMobil’s CCS portfol