Called 1PointFive, the joint venture has signed a licencing agreement with Carbon Engineering to enable the commercial development of the world’s largest DAC facility, located in the Permian Basin, a first step towards its ambition of delivering the technology on an industrial scale throughout the US. 

“The formation of 1PointFive is a significant catalyst that will advance our plans to build the world’s largest-scale DAC facility to remove substantial volumes of CO2 emissions from the atmosphere,” said Richard Jackson, Oxy Low Carbon Ventures President and Chairman of 1PointFive. 

“Occidental has over 40 years of CO2 management experience, and Oxy Low Carbon Ventures is applying our technical ingenuity and engineering skill to help make large-scale DAC facilities a reality.”

1PointFive aims to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere through the deployment of Carbon Engineering’s DAC technology which provides a pathway to bolster Paris Agreement-alighted efforts. 

Work begun on the DAC facility in May last year, but today, the companies released a ‘first look’ at the design of the plant which, when operational will catch up to one million metric tonnes of atmospheric CO2 annually.

Read more: Carbon Engineering and Oxy begin work on “world’s largest” DAC plant in Permian Basin

The carbon capture at the facility will be permanently, safely and securely stored deep underground in geological formations by Occidental. It will be then used in lower-carbon oil production, which permanently stores CO2 as part of the process, and for geological sequestration to deliver permanent carbon removal, a solution to counteract hard-to-eliminate emissions. 

With DAC, atmospheric CO2 can also be used as a feedstock to create low-carbon products like plastics and concrete.

“The Carbon Engineering business model is to license our technology to developers around the world to enable rapid and widespread global deployment of DAC technology,” said Steve Oldham, Carbon Engineering’s CEO.

“This partnership marks Carbon Engineering’s first licensing agreement in the U.S. and is a critical next step in the commercialisation of DAC technology. It will prove the technology at large, climate-relevant scale, validate the cost, and demonstrate that DAC is now a feasible, available and affordable tool that can be added to the global climate toolkit.”

“It will also allow Carbon Engineering to grow and meet the increasing demand for carbon removal from the private and public sectors. We are looking to replicate this licensing model in other markets around the world so we can deploy DAC as quickly and broadly as possible and start to make a meaningful impact on the huge climate challenge.”