What you won’t read in ExxonMobil’s Advancing Climate Solutions 2022 Progress Report: 95% of Exxon’s captured carbon is used to pump more oil.
- ExxonMobil’s Shute Creek Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) facility is designed to remove CO2 from gas to produce marketable methane.
- About half of that CO2 has been vented into the atmosphere over the facility’s lifetime.
- Of the other half of the CO2 that has been captured, nearly all has been sold to oil companies that use it to recover more oil from depleted wells.
- Only about 3% of the captured CO2 has been sequestered underground.
- When the price of oil goes down, the facility sells less and vents more of its CO2.
Earlier this year, oil and gas giant ExxonMobil mounted a vigorous publicity blitz to promote a glossy 54-page report touting the company’s efforts for “advancing carbon solutions.” It highlighted its so-called Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology. “ExxonMobil has more than 30 years of experience capturing and permanently storing carbon dioxide (C0₂), and has cumulatively captured more anthropogenic CO₂ than any other company.” What the report did not say is that amounted to less than 3% of total captured CO2. Also missing from the report was the letter “U” for utilization. As in ExxonMobil utilizes a vast portion of its captured carbon to pump more oil with what is known as Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) technology.
Welcome to ExxonMobil’s carbon capture spin machine – long on hope, short on reality, and missing the ‘u’ for utilization. Other PR nuggets in the report: ExxonMobil was “interested” in an ambitious “Houston CCS hub” that would remove 100 million tons of CO2 from Houston’s polluted air. But only if taxpayers picked up the tab through “enhanced tax credits.” The report went on to say that ExxonMobil was investing in CCS technology that could capture more than 90% of CO2 and prove up to six times more effective than conventional technology.”
Now let’s have a reality check and pay a visit to the the world’s largest carbon capture unit, ExxonMobil’s Shute Creek Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) facility located near the giant LaBarge gas fields in southwest Wyoming. Opened in 1986, Shute Creek has captured about 120 million tons of carbon dioxide CO2. However, 95% of Shute Creek’s captured CO2 has been sold to oil companies for enhanced oil recovery — a process in which CO2 is pumped into depleted wells to recover more oil. The recovered oil is then burned, emitting the CO2 back into the atmosphere. All of this is not mentioned in ExxonMobil’s climate report.
Exxon was ordered to open its largest CCS plant
The origins of the plant are also definitely not mentioned in the report. Shute Creek would never have been built in the first place had ExxonMobil not been ordered to build it because local officials were concerned its gas operations were venting too much CO2 pollution. At the time, ExxonMobil was flaring about 180 million cubic feet of CO2 per day at the plant. The company was also selling another 225 million cubic feet per day to enhanced oil recovery operations in Colorado and Wyoming.
But in June 2008, ExxonMobil Wyoming’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission ordered ExxonMobil to curb carbon dioxide emissions at Shute Creek and redirect the greenhouse gas into pipelines for enhanced oil recovery. And, what CO2 that was captured was done solely to solve another noxious problem: bury hazardous hydrogen sulfide gasses, better known as sewer gas, or swamp gas because of its “rotten egg” odor. And even at low concentrations, it can cause severe injury and even death. All of this is also not mentioned in the report.
In public relations, ExxonMobil’s.spin on CCS is called turning lemons into lemonade.
Despite huge investment globally over the last 50 years and the pace of recent carbon capture build-up in the fossil fuel industry, the technology is still found wanting — as is the motivation of companies using it.
Sell or Vent: An unsustainable business model
When the Shute Creek project was designed in the early 1980s emission reduction was not the primary goal. Shute Creek used CCUS to make its gas marketable.
In gas processing plants, CO2 has to be removed from extracted raw gas to get marketable methane (“natural gas”). Removing CO2 increases the heating value of gas and prevents technical problems during the transportation, distribution or liquefaction phases.
Removing CO2 in Shute Creek’s case was expensive because the field had exceptionally high CO2 content. The viability of the project relied on treating CO2 as a marketable by-product that could be sold to oil companies for enhanced oil recovery.
Capturing CO2 for use in enhanced oil recovery is not a climate solution.
CCUS improved profitability for both ExxonMobil’s Shute Creek project and the oil companies who bought the CO2 to produce more oil.
But the model is very sensitive to oil price volatility. When oil prices are high, oil companies have an incentive to buy it for enhanced oil recovery. But when oil prices are low, the demand for captured CO2 declines, so the greenhouse gas is then vented into the atmosphere.
When oil prices are low, the demand for captured CO2 declines, so the greenhouse gas is then vented into the atmosphere.
This “Sell or Vent” model does not reduce emissions.
Indeed, the Shute Creek project has rarely met its maximum capture capacity during its 35-year lifetime. Around half of Shute Creek’s total CO2 emissions have been vented over its lifetime. Only around 3% has been sequestered underground and about 47% has been sold for enhanced oil recovery. In short, the facility hasn’t captured the volume of CO2 it was designed for, for economic, rather than technical reasons.
CCUS projects using a “Sell or Vent” business model, are by far the largest application of carbon capture technologies today, where carbon is utilized for enhanced oil recovery before being partly stored in depleted oil wells.
Although this system increases fossil fuel production, the oil and gas industry has deftly portrayed CCUS as climate positive.
The model is also on shaky economic footing. To stay profitable, CCUS coupled with enhanced oil recovery requires a high oil price, and in many cases, subsidies.
Perversely, some governments are subsidizing production from high-CO2 gas and oil fields and enabling more oil and gas production through enhanced oil recovery — and framing those subsidies as “climate-friendly.”
Currently, large government subsidies for CCUS are proposed in the U.S. and are being granted in Australia through its Emissions Reduction Fund.
CCUS should be seen as a subsidy harvesting scheme to prolong the life of the oil and gas industry, not an emission reduction investment.
According to the Global CCS Institute, more than 70% of all carbon capture projects globally are CCUS and used for enhanced oil recovery.
According to the Global CCS Institute, more than 70% of all carbon capture projects globally are CCUS and used for enhanced oil recovery.
Another model, Carbon Capture and Storage, dedicated to the capture and (underground) storage of CO2 without any further use, make up less than 30% of the total in operation worldwide. CSS has also been promoted as a potential solution to reduce emissions.
However, CCS projects also face technical difficulties and their economic viability is uncertain, as evidenced by the failed Chevron Gorgon CCS project — the largest CCS project in the world with dedicated geological storage based in Western Australia.
Overall, the majority of commissioned carbon capture projects globally have not attained the levels of capture/storage they aim to achieve.
At best, carbon capture appears unrealistic as a climate solution. And the CCUS model should mainly be seen as a subsidy harvesting scheme to prolong the life of the oil and gas industry, not an emission reduction investment.
