OCCIDENTAL
Getting to carbon neutrality

When Occidental announced it aspired to carbon neutrality, it pointed to CCUS projects as critical to making this vision a reality.

For decades, Occidental has injected naturally occurring carbon dioxide into its Permian Basin reservoirs to enhance oil recovery (EOR), becoming a global leader in the technology while safely and permanently storing about 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.

Occidental received approval from the US Environment Protection Agency for the first two plans for quantifying the amount of human-caused carbon dioxide permanently stored in its oil and gas reservoirs. Occidental was a key supporter of legislation expanding the 45Q tax credit, enacted in February 2018 to incentivize the capture and geologic storage of human-caused carbon dioxide.

In 2018, Occidental and White Energy announced a project to install carbon capture equipment at the two White Energy ethanol plants in Texas. The captured carbon dioxide will be transported via pipeline to the Permian, where it will be injected and permanently stored as part of Occidental’s EOR operations, qualifying the project for 45Q tax credits.

There is tremendous capacity available in the Permian, other areas of the USA and across the world to safely and permanently store carbon dioxide, and Occidental is a leader in implementing CCUS partnerships, like the one with White Energy, in pursuit of carbon neutrality.

OGCI’s KickStarter project draws on the success of policies such as those in the USA to incentivize commercial investment in CCUS.