Chevron leads investment round in CCS developer Svante
US major Chevron said December 15 it had taken a leading position in the latest fundraising round of Canadian carbon capture and storage (CCS) developer Svante, which raised $318mn in its Series E round to advance the manufacturing of its technology.
“We are advancing a full value chain carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) business and believe Svante is poised to be a leader in enabling carbon capture solutions,” said Chris Powers, vice president of CCUS with Chevron New Energies (CNE). “Innovation is key to enabling these types of breakthrough technologies and lower carbon solutions, and we look forward to applying our experience and expertise to help drive this effort forward.”
Svante has developed carbon capture and removal technology using structured adsorbent beds, known as filters. The Series E funding will support its commercial-scale filter manufacturing facility in Vancouver, which is anticipated to produce enough filter modules to capture millions of tonnes of CO2) annually across hundreds of large-scale carbon capture and storage facilities.
“We are proud that Chevron and a group of existing and new strategic and financial investors have demonstrated their confidence in Svante to be a key player in building a commercially viable carbon management industry,” Svante CEO Claude Letourneau said. “We are working to remove the biggest barriers to rapid deployment of industrial carbon capture by building this manufacturing facility, which we expect will enable us to rapidly expand our order book.”
Svante’s modular technology is designed to capture CO2 from industrial flue gas, which is then concentrated into a high-purity, 95% pipeline-grade CO2 to prepare it for storage or further industrial use.
Chevron, through its Chevron Technology Ventures subsidiary, made its initial investments in Svante in 2014, and is working with the Canadian company to pilot its capture technology from the post combustion of natural gas. That technology will be tested later this month at Chevron’s Kern River facility in California.