US LNG groups look to boost carbon capture

The US has emerged as an LNG export powerhouse in recent years following explosive growth in the country’s shale oil and gasfields, emboldening American claims of energy independence and handing Washington a useful new tool to counter geopolitical foes such as Russia. But, for a handful of companies racing to build new projects that could propel the nation’s exports yet higher, the global crackdown on emissions and heightened focus on methane pollution from US oil and gasfields has threatened to derail their plans. European efforts to implement a carbon border adjustment tax — which could levy a fee for higher emitting imports — is of particular concern for US LNG companies that compete with Russia, Qatar and others on the continent. US LNG project developers have looked to counter the threat by rolling out plans to install costly equipment to capture carbon from their facilities, among other measures such as pledging to secure gas only from producers monitoring their own emissions. LNG project developer Venture Global said last week that it planned to install carbon capture and storage equipment that could eventually trap as much as 1m tonnes of CO2 a year from a new $5.8bn export plant it is building on the Gulf Coast in Louisiana and another it hoped to approve this year. That came after a similar announcement in March from project developer NextDecade, which said it had added plans to capture and store about 90 per cent of the CO2 emissions from its proposed $8bn Rio Grande export site in Texas. It hopes to make a final investment decision on the project this year. Carbon capture and storage, where CO2 is trapped at the site and piped to natural reservoirs deep underground for storage, is often touted by the oil and gas industry as a way to continue pumping fossil fuels even as the global economy decarbonises. But carbon capture remains costly and has not yet been deployed widely, making the US LNG proposals a key test for the technology.