Occidental's Oxy Low Carbon Ventures (OLCV) subsidiary and Weyerhaeuser Company announced an agreement for the evaluation and potential development of a carbon capture and sequestration project in Livingston Parish, Louisiana.
The lease agreement provides OLCV with exclusive rights to develop and operate a carbon sequestration hub on more than 30,000 acres of subsurface pore space controlled by Weyerhaeuser. OLCV will use the land to permanently sequester industrial carbon dioxide (CO2) in underground geologic formations not associated with oil and gas production, while Weyerhaeuser continues to manage the aboveground acreage as a working forest.
The lease agreement, with the potential to expand acreage, is a pivotal step in OLCV subsidiary 1PointFive’s strategic vision to develop a series of carbon capture and sequestration hubs within the U.S.:
- 1PointFive plans to build, acquire and operate multiple sequestration hubs on the Gulf Coast and across the U.S., some of which are expected to be anchored by Direct Air Capture (DAC) facilities, to offer storage capacity to point-source emitters, such as manufacturing sites and power plants, with a capacity to sequester up to hundreds of millions of metric tons of anthropogenic CO2.
- 1PointFive aims to play a transformational role in combatting climate change through industrial decarbonization of the hard-to-abate industrial sector in the U.S.
“We’re excited to work with Weyerhaeuser to grow this side of our business and help reduce carbon emissions. 1PointFive and its planned sequestration hubs are expected to be an expanding side of our business that will work with industrial emitters to capture, transport and permanently store CO2,” said Richard Jackson, chairman of 1PointFive. “1PointFive is a comprehensive carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) platform that is working to deliver solutions to reduce global emissions backed by Oxy's expertise and experience in carbon management for more than 50 years.”
The lease agreement also marks Weyerhaeuser’s first step in building its carbon capture and storage (CCS) business across its land base in the Gulf Coast:
- Weyerhaeuser has identified multiple locations for potential CCS projects across a portion of its 7 million-acre footprint in the U.S. South using proprietary geological data covering its lands.
- The expansion into CCS is part of Weyerhaeuser’s previously announced plan to grow its recently formed Natural Climate Solutions business, including through CCS, forest carbon offsets, renewable energy development, mitigation solutions and conservation.
“We are excited to work with OLCV on this project, which combines a portion of our uniquely positioned southern U.S. acreage and subsurface ownership with OLCV’s proven technical expertise in the management and sequestration of CO2,” said Russell Hagen, chief development officer for Weyerhaeuser. “This agreement represents important progress in advancing Weyerhaeuser’s strategic growth in carbon capture and storage, and it supports our broader commitment to sustainability and providing natural climate solutions across our land base.”
