Worley touts Texas carbon plant as revolution for climate goals

Engineering group Worley says a $1bn carbon-capture plant in Texas’s vast Permian Basin may emerge as a major technology allowing fossil fuel producers to meet climate change goals.

A worker prepares to lift drills by pulley on a rig in the Permian Basin in Texas. Occidental Petroleum is constructing a giant carbon-capture plant there. Picture: Bloomberg

Engineering group Worley says a $1bn carbon-capture plant in Texas’s vast Permian Basin may emerge as a major technology allowing fossil fuel producers to meet climate change goals.

Over the weekend the Australian contractor kicked off the construction phase for the world’s largest direct air-capture facility, which works by gathering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through high-powered fans.

Air is drawn into a processing facility where the carbon is separated through chemical reactions and then either permanently stored in underground reservoirs or used to make new products, including building materials and low-carbon fuels.

The US project, developed by the Warren Buffett-backed Occidental Petroleum, aims to turbocharge the small-scale direct air capture industry, with only 18 plants currently operating globally, according to the International Energy Agency. Worley is the engineering and construction partner for the Texas project and carried out the engineering component of the project as part of an alliance with Occidental’s subsidiary 1PointFive.

Worley chief executive Chris Ashton said that while the industry was still at a small level, the US government’s $US370bn Inflation Reduction Act was expected to drive new developments and projects in line with a focus on the clean energy transition.

“The IRA is accelerating capital being deployed in the energy transition space and whether it’s going to be direct air capture, carbon capture or hydrogen,” Mr Ashton said.

“What we are seeing is technology at scale being deployed that is economically viable with the assistance of government programs such as the IRA.”

Occidental and its energy unit 1PointFive expect the plant to be up and running by 2025 and able to capture up to 500,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, with the capability to scale up to a million tonnes annually. Ultimately, Occidental wants to build up to 70 direct air capture facilities around the world by 2035.

Worley CEO Chris Ashton.

The existing plants capture a tiny amount of carbon currently but the IEA estimates direct air capture can be scaled up to capture almost 60 million tonnes of  CO2 a year by 2030 under its net zero emissions by 2050 scenario.

“This level of deployment is within reach, but will require several more large-scale demonstration plants to refine the technology and reduce capture costs,” the IEA said.

In Australia, Santos has partnered with the national science agency CSIRO on the development of technology to capture carbon emissions from the air for storage or use.

The project will involve four direct air-capture units based at Moomba in South Australia’s far north, with the carbon to be sequestered at Santos’s $220m carbon capture and storage project.

Worley says direct air capture along with hydrogen are in ­demand among its customers, which typically include some of the world’s biggest oil and gas players, who are under pressure to fast-track a move to low carbon sources of energy.

The Climate Change Authority said in April the federal government’s $10bn green bank and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency should be given expanded roles to turbocharge the nation’s carbon storage industry as pressure grows for deeper emissions cuts to hit a net zero goal by 2050.

While Australia has existing policies and institutions to incentivise carbon capture, the climate body says new approaches with industry need to be found to ensure enough investment flows to technology and new projects.

Carbon capture and storage in particular has been put forward as a technology fix to help Australia meet its emissions goals and part of a broader industry drive to hit net zero by 2050. However, big operators like Santos have previously warned Australia is missing an opportunity to create a major carbon capture and storage industry and called on governments to prioritise the technology.

The report also calls for separate targets for emissions reduction and carbon removals to build future demand and guard against sequestration being used to delay emission reductions.