Confirming its ambitions on Tuesday (March 2), the oil and gas firm said it will use the produced hydrogen as a fuel at its Baytown olefins plant, in a move to slash its emissions by up to 30%.

Set to feature what is said to be one of the world’s largest carbon capture and storage projects, the site will have capacity to transport and store up to ten million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, doubling ExxonMobil’s currently capacity.

Joe Blommaert, President of ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions, said, “Hydrogen has the potential to significantly reduce CO2 emissions in vital sectors of the economy and create valuable, lower-emissions products that support modern life.

“By helping to activate new marks for hydrogen and carbon capture and storage, this project can play an important part in achieving America’s lower-emissions aspirations.”

Already, ExxonMobil produces approximately one and a half billion cubic feet of hydrogen daily, meaning the new site will greatly boost its production rates.

ExxonMobil’s commitment at its Baytown site is part of the company’s commitment to invest more than $15bn on lower-emissions initiatives and look to advance both technology and policy.

Developments at the location will further act as ExxonMobil’s initial contribution to a broad, cross-industry effort to establish a Houston carbon capture and storage hub, with an initial target of approximately 50 million metric tonnes of CO2 by 20230 and 100 million metric tonnes by 2040.

North American Hydrogen Summit 

H2 View is taking its events platform to America’s original clean hydrogen hub of California. Together with the California Fuel Cell Partnership (CaFCP), we will stage our North American Hydrogen Summit in San Francisco on July 14-15.

As our summit theme Building Bridges: Hydrogen hubs and investment suggests, the event will explore the $8bn of funding announced to create at least four regional hydrogen hubs in the US. These hubs will turbo-charge the nation’s progress toward heavy trucking and industrial sectors that run without producing carbon pollution – and they may just provide the path forward to a hydrogen-fuelled future.

With California and Texas vying to be America’s hydrogen capital today, where are the hubs of tomorrow? Further still, what can other states, and countries, learn from California’s success story? And how can we build bridges to a successful flow of international investment?

Full information about this event including attendance and sponsorship packages can be found here.