Leading tech firms form global alliance to scale carbon capture

Shell Catalysts & Technologies and Technip Energies have formed a global alliance to deliver a post-combustion amine-based carbon capture solution using Shell’s Cansolv carbon dioxide capture system.

The alliance combines the firms’ respective strengths in technology and project delivery. They believe it is the best model to make carbon capture more investable, scalable and accessible for industrial sectors.

From project inception to operational support, the alliance will provide clients with “seamless execution and continuous performance optimisation”.

Shell’s Cansolv system captures CO₂ from flue gas. The CO₂ is then delivered to the client for eventual sequestration or sale into the enhanced oil recovery and commodity markets. Sulphur dioxide can also be captured and sold, reused or stored.

Robin Mooldijk, President Projects & Technology, Shell said, “Through our strengthened alliance with Technip Energies, we’re helping customers advance their decarbonisation plans.”

Arnaud Pieton, CEO of Technip Energies said the global alliance is the result of more than 10 years of collaboration and continuous innovation.

“Our ambition is to deliver a world designed to last by enabling hard-to-abate industries to decarbonise with greater certainty and affordably,” he said.

Currently there are two operating Cansolv facilities, and four projects have reached final investment decision in the last two years.

They include Net Zero Teesside Power, set to be the world’s first gas-fired power station with carbon capture and storage. A construction contract was recently awarded. Shell claims its technology has captured more than five million tonnes of CO₂ from the Saskpower Boundary Dam facility in Canada.

Technip Energies and Turner Industries were recently awarded an Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) contract by ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions Onshore Storage.

The agreement marks a milestone for Cansolv, which started with four engineers and chemists working in Canada on the development of amines for use in the oil and gas industry in the 1980s.

In the Seventh Carbon Budget, the UK Climate Change Committee reduced the country’s 2050 annual CCS target by 30% to 73 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (MtCO2). CCS nonetheless remains a core pillar of the UK’s Net Zero pathway.

“The unproven and expensive technology is expected to support a 17% reduction of the UK’s 2023 emissions by 2050,” according to the think tank, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. It forecasts £408bn will be required over the next 25 years to install and operate CCS infrastructure within the UK.

“Enormous government subsidies will be required to support projects. There is little economic incentive for polluters to install CCS facilities as carbon prices in the Emissions Trading Scheme are too low,” it states.