Chevron Corp. announced plans on March 4 to build a carbon capture plant in its home state of California in partnership with several firms that include oilfield services company Schlumberger Ltd.

The announcement follows similar investments in renewable energy made by Chevron within the past week including a geothermal pilot project in California as the U.S. oil major expands its exposure in low-carbon technology.

“Chevron is helping to advance a lower-carbon future,” Bruce Niemeyer, Chevron’s vice president of strategy and sustainability, said in a joint release on March 4 with project partners Schlumberger, Microsoft and Clean Energy Systems.

In the past year, companies across the oil and gas sector have started to boost renewable investments and target emissions reductions in response to growing pressure from investors and activists to address climate change.

Chevron’s proposed carbon capture plant, located in Mendota, California, will be designed to produce “carbon negative power” using bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration (BECCS) technology, the companies said in the release.

Through BECCS, the proposed carbon capture plant will convert agricultural waste biomass, such as almond trees, into a renewable synthesis gas that will be mixed with oxygen in a combustor to generate electricity. With almost all the carbon captured in the conversion of agricultural waste stored underground, the process is designed to result in net-negative carbon emissions, effectively removing greenhouse gas from the atmosphere.

The plant, when completed, is expected to remove about 300,000 tons of CO₂ annually, which is equivalent to the emissions from electricity use of more than 65,000 U.S. homes, the joint release said.

The companies expect to begin FEED work immediately with a final investment decision (FID) for the project targeted in 2022.

“We are diversifying our portfolio of projects with partnerships in selected markets and geographies where existing policies and regulations can make projects attractive today. This unique BECCS project in California is a game-changing example of this,” said Ashok Belani, executive vice president of Schlumberger New Energy, a division of the oilfield services firm launched last year to explore new business opportunities in low carbon or carbon-neutral energy technologies.

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Following the FID of the BECCS project in California, Chevron, Schlumberger and partners will begin to evaluate other opportunities to scale this carbon capture and sequestration solution, according to the release.

“We look forward to leveraging our experience working in California, building projects which can be repeated, and operating large-scale carbon capture and storage operations,” Chevron’s Niemeyer added. “The project is aligned with our focus on investments in low-carbon technology to enable commercial solutions.”

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