“China has an ambitious decarbonization path – from about 10 billion tons of CO₂ emissions a year to net-zero within 30 years,” said Jason Wong, executive chairman of Shell companies in China. “A shift to cleaner energy sources and energy efficiency will not be enough. China will also need to actively remove emissions. This makes CCS an essential part of the solution for China to achieve carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060.”

Initial assessments show that the project at the Dayawan Petrochemical Industrial Park in Huizhou, Guangdong province, China, could potentially capture up to 10 million t/y of CO₂ from Dayawan’s industrial sector, supporting China’s ambition of carbon neutrality by 2060.

If successful, it will be China’s first offshore large-scale CCS hub that could help reduce significant CO₂ emissions of the Daya Bay National Economic and Technological Development Zone and serve the decarbonization needs of the area’s enterprises.

The companies will also evaluate China’s carbon policy systems and propose policies for consideration that would support the deployment of CCS in the Dayawan Petrochemical Industrial Park.

“Collaboration with government and industry is an important part of unlocking future carbon capture and storage opportunities, with the potential for large-scale reductions of emissions from vital sectors of the global economy,” said Dan Ammann, president of ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions. “Well-designed government policies will help accelerate the broad deployment of lower-emissions technologies in support of society’s net-zero ambitions.”

ExxonMobil said it has more than 30 years of experience capturing CO₂ and has an equity share of about one-fifth of the world’s CCS capacity at about 9 million t/y. Shell’s ambition is to have access to at least 25 million t/y of CCS capacity by 2035.

Author: Elaine Burridge, Freelance Journalist