NEXT Carbon to study CCS at California power plant

NEXT Carbon Solutions, a unit of US LNG developer NextDecade, and California Resources Corporation (CRC) said May 5 they had executed an agreement to explore adding post-combustion carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to CRC’s gas-fired Elk Hills power plant.

NEXT Carbon will perform a front-end engineering design (FEED) study for the post combustion capture and compression of up to 95% of the CO₂ produced at Elk Hills, a 550 MW combined-cycle power plant located in Kern County, California. Captured CO₂ would be sequestered in area enhanced oil recovery (EOR) operations.

As the FEED study progresses, NEXT Carbon and CRC intend to finalise definitive commercial arrangements allowing CRC to take a final investment decision on its CalCapture CCS+ project following the completion of FEED.

CalCapture CCS+, CRC CEO Mac McFarland said, has the potential to produce the first home-grown, net zero barrel of oil in California, while sequestering more than 28mn mt of CO₂ over its project life. It would inject about 1.4mn mt/yr of CO₂ and produce an incremental 7,000 barrels/day of net zero oil.

“This locally created energy is crucial for a state with high environmental standards that also imports over 70% of its crude oil needs with a higher carbon intensity than what can be made locally,” McFarland said. “We are excited by NCS’ proprietary carbon capture processes which lower costs and demonstrate scalable carbon solutions to help California achieve its energy goals.”