Jeremy Osterberger, president of BIC Alliance, sat down recently with Michael Bey, head of Americas Hydrogen Business Development at ExxonMobil, to talk about the company’s recently announced project designed to be the world’s largest low-carbon facility.
Bey, who has been with ExxonMobil for two decades, said the project was announced earlier this spring for development in the Baytown area of Houston and is expected to produce 1 billion cubic feet a day of blue hydrogen once it is up and running.
“We are focused on a low-carbon solution, on creating a low-carbon, hydrogen business for ExxonMobil,” Bey said. “We don’t look at the colors of the hydrogen, but rather the carbon-intensity of the hydrogen molecules. Today the cheap - est way to produce low-carbon hydrogen is blue hydrogen.”
ExxonMobil earlier this spring awarded the FEED for the project, which it hopes to have fully funded by 2024 and up-and-running in the 2027– 2028-time frame.
“This is the first major project in the low-carbon hydrogen space,” Bey said. “We’re looking at each market in the Americas as well as the export market for development.”
The company has been working on the project for more than a year and expects it would allow ExxonMobil to sell low-carbon hydrogen along the Gulf Coast, as well as provide the ability to export the ammonia to other countries across the globe.
“We are working on economy of scale to bring the cost down,” Bey said. “At the end of the day, low-carbon hydrogen is still more expensive than other sources of fuel that exist out there. We will have to work together in the public sector and private sector to figure out a way to bring the cost down.”
Osterberger asked Bey about ExxonMobil’s plans surrounding the storage of the CO2 once it is captured. Bey said the Houston and Gulf Coast areas are uniquely positioned to meet that challenge.
“We have to create the infrastructure. The reservoirs exist,” Bey said. “Houston and the Gulf Coast area are one of the best to store CO2 , but we are looking at multiple sites. We’re lucky to be in this space, in this area.
“(In) other areas in the U.S., as you go inland, and in other counties, it becomes hard to store CO2 just because they don’t have the right rock and the right foundation for it. Here we have a large space for it. We’re looking for the most cost-compet - itive way we can do it within this time frame.”
Bey said the idea for the project began about a year ago when his team was presented with a challenge to solve the problem of about 100 million tons of CO2 emissions — including industrial emissions — in the Greater Houston area, and the team started looking at carbon capture, transportation and storage.
ExxonMobil leading in low-carbon hydrogen space
Employees working at the ExxonMobil Baytown Olefins Plant
“In general, for some facilities in the Greater Houston area, it would be cheaper for them to go through carbon capture, transportation and storage,” Bey said. “For us, it’s more cost competitive to use low-carbon hydrogen solution. What you will end up with is a mix of both, so we set out to develop both of these in the Houston area to offer the carbon capture, transportation and storage as well.”
With regard to concerns about the intensity of low-carbon production, Bey said, “For this project, in particular, we are happy to announce that we will be capturing more than 98% of the CO2 that is generated at the hydrogen plant. That is a significant number. We’re excited to capture the vast majority of that CO2 right at the plant.” Bey said the project will be the equivalent of removing the emissions from more than 1.5 million vehicles off the street.
“This is a significant commitment of resources we are going after and comes with challenges that will require the public and private sector to work together,” he said. “But it’s a great project and we’re very excited about it.” he said.
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