Canada’s Suncor Invests in Svante CCS

Canadian integrated producer Suncor said March 18 it had invested US$25mn in Vancouver-based carbon capture and storage (CCS) developer Svante, topping up a recent equity financing that had already raised US$75mn.

At US$100mn, the offering is the single largest private investment in point source carbon capture technology globally to date, a Suncor release said.

Others in the private financing include Carbon Direct, Singapore-based sovereign wealth fund Temasek, Chart Industries, OGCI Climate Investments, BDC Cleantech Practice, Chevron Technology Ventures, the Roda Group, Chrysalix Venture Capital and Export Development Canada.

“Carbon capture is a strategic technology area for Suncor to reduce GHG emissions in our base business and produce blue hydrogen as an energy product,” Suncor CEO Mark Little said. “An investment in Svante is expected to support the acceleration of commercial scale deployment of a technology that has the potential to dramatically reduce the cost associated with carbon capture.”

Svante currently operates a small demonstration plant in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan with the capacity to capture 10,000 mt/yr of CO₂. By the end of 2023, it wants to be ready to start building a larger 1.5mn mt/yr facility at the LafargeHolcim cement factory in Florence, Colorado.