Exxon Could Benefit from Emissions Work: Technology for Capturing and Storing Greenhouse Gas …

U.S. NEWS
DECEMBER 26, 2008

Exxon Could Benefit from Emissions Work

Technology for Capturing and Storing Greenhouse Gas Puts Oil Giant in Unusual Favor with Environmentalists

By RUSSELL GOLD

While Exxon Mobil Corp. has been among the most vocal skeptics of man-made causes of climate change, the company has spent the last two decades forging an expertise in one of the key technologies to combat the problem: capturing and storing carbon-dioxide emissions.

Since the 1980s, an Exxon natural-gas processing plant in Wyoming has been doing just what many environmentalists say needs to happen on a global scale: capturing carbon dioxide and storing it underground instead of venting it into the air. Indeed, Exxon's La Barge, Wyo., facility, for years has captured more carbon dioxide -- the most abundant greenhouse gas -- than any other facility in North America.

Now Exxon, at the insistence of state officials, is spending $70 million to expand by 50% the plant's capacity to capture carbon dioxide, brought to the surface along with the natural gas. The plant separates the natural gas from impurities. And the Texas oil giant is spending another $100 million to test new technology to make it easier and less expensive to strip carbon dioxide out of the natural gas.

Both investments could secure a place for Exxon in the emerging marketplace aimed at lowering emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. There is also a growing market for carbon dioxide itself, because it helps produce more fossil fuels.

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