Worley, an Australian-based asset services company, has been awarded with the Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) for the first Direct Air Capture (DAC) facility in the U.S., to be located in the Permian Basin.
Firstly, the project was awarded by 1PointFive, a joint venture of Oxy Low Carbon, which is also an Occidental subsidiary. The facility is part of Oxy’s new carbon capture technology, which sequestrates carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere, hence its name Direct Air Capture.
Secondly, the DAC1 project represents the first commercial-scale deployment; also, it is the first step in the 1PointFive and Worley partnership. Its initial focus will be the Permian Clean Campus that will contain DAC1 through DAC4.
Thirdly, when complete, the facility will be able to extract one million metric tons of CO2 per year; which will be a critical first step for further development of the technology. 1PointFive’s intentions are to help companies and economies around the world meet their CO2 emissions reductions goals.
Consequently, the FEED phase of DAC1 will focus on the first train, which will have an extracting capacity of 500,000 metric tons of CO2 each year. This first phase will be fully operational by the end of 2021, scheduled to begin construction activities within 90 days.
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Worley at the forefront of innovation
“Upon completion of FEED, the alliance will move into the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) phase,” the company says in a statement.
Moreover, Richard Jackson, 1PointFive’s chairman, said. “We partnered with Worley for this historic project because our organizations are like-minded in their vision of sustainability. Worley has a proven track record of true innovation, and that will be essential to bring DAC to commercial scale.”
“This first-of-its-kind facility is taking on one of the greatest challenges of our time. Our combined knowledge and expertise will not only make the project a success, but also make real progress in the creation of a circular economy.”
On the other hand, Chris Ashton, CEO at Worley, said. “Partnering with 1PointFive on this project aligns perfectly with our desire to deliver a more sustainable world. Climate change is a big challenge to take on. But we’ll have some of the brightest minds in the world on this historic project.”
Finally, Occidental expects that this low carbon venture will match or even surpass its oil and gas earnings for the next decades.
