In early 2023, ExxonMobil unveiled its plan for a low-carbon hydrogen plant at its refining and petrochemical facility in Baytown, Texas.
"There, we expect to produce up to 1 billion cuf/d of hydrogen made from natural gas and expect over 98% of the associated carbon dioxide to be captured and safely stored underground," according to a company statement.
With planned startup in 2027-2028, this vast project — the company’s first worldscale plant — would include carbon capture and storage capable of storing up to 10 million mt of CO2 per year, doubling the company’s CCS capacity of 9 million mt/yr.
Chris Duffy, Baytown Blue H2 Venture executive with ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions, discussed the importance of scale, why it matters and how scale can reduce the costs at the World Hydrogen North America conference in Houston.
Scale matters for "two important reasons," Duffy began.
"One, the problem that we have with hydrogen is that carbon dioxide abatement is extremely large. That’s the equivalent of 1.5 million homes," he said, explaining the scale of 1 billion cuf/d, low-carbon hydrogen in more imaginable terms. "So, if you’re going to try to solve the world’s energy problem, you need to be able to do it at scale."
The other important reason for scale, Duffy said, "is clearly to get the cost lower."
While scale is "really important," Duffy said integration is also important. "And you have to be able to integrate at scale."
"That means the facility we’re looking at building in Baytown would have a billion standard cuf/d of hydrogen. We’d also have an ammonia plant. But to feed that, you need feedstock. So, you get hydrogen that you need for your ammonia plant, and you need large scale natural gas," Duffy said, listing the components integral to the project. "You also need large amounts of power, and you need large amounts of oxygen. For that natural gas, you need infrastructure and systems."
ExxonMobil’s hydrogen project addresses impact of scale
Chris Duffy, Baytown Blue H2 Venture executive with ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions
Duffy said the project team is "very fortunate" to be located in the Gulf Coast region, as it is close to both ethane and natural gas coming from the Permian Basin.
"And we have large pipeline networks that deliver products to our facilities in the Baytown area," he said.
To meet the facility’s power requirements, Duffy pointed out that the company "is also very fortunate to be part of The Electric Reliability Council of Texas grid, which supplies large-scale power to our facilities."
Also essential, Duffy said, is "the geology to store this carbon dioxide, and you need that at scale."
Additionally, the project requires large CO2 pipelines, "like our Newberry pipeline that ExxonMobil has access to," Duffy said.
Underscoring ExxonMobil’s dominant presence in the industry, Duffy noted that the steam cracker that ExxonMobil operates at the Baytown facility is the largest steam cracker in North America.
"It’s very expensive if you have to move that hydrogen around a facility that’s not very dense," he said. "Having a steam cracker that has a large energy need — you can do it on a much more affordable basis."
Duffy also lauded the Baytown area’s access to large port facilities.
"We can convert that hydrogen into ammonia, and then it goes into the vessels," he said. "And we are able to transport that around the world to either Asia or Europe using very large ships."
"It’s 7 million tons of carbon dioxide that we’re looking to store with this project. That gives you an idea of the magnitude and the amount of carbon that we’ll be storing," Duffy concluded.
