Talos Energy Inc. recently unveiled plans to develop a carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) project immediately adjacent to the Freeport LNG export facility in Texas that Talos President and CEO Timothy S. Duncan said could be the first active carbon sequestration project on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

One of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico’s largest public independent producers, Talos Energy launched an initiative earlier this year to target carbon capture and storage opportunities along the U.S. Gulf Coast. These have included being selected as the operator of the only major offshore carbon sequestration hub in the U.S. to be located in Jefferson County, Texas.

“We are excited to announce this project with Freeport LNG, a global LNG leader,” Duncan commented in a joint release on Nov. 15. “The entrepreneurial collaboration of our teams allowed for the development of a unique, stand-alone carbon sequestration solution, which provides proof of concept to our broader CCS portfolio and is complementary to our larger hub-based project in Jefferson County.”

In the joint release, Talos and Freeport LNG Development LP said the companies had executed a letter of intent to develop the CCS project immediately adjacent to Freeport LNG’s natural gas pretreatment facilities located near Freeport, Texas, on the Gulf Coast, approximately 60 miles southwest of Houston, where both companies are headquartered.

Freeport was formed in 2002 to develop, own and operate an LNG terminal near Freeport, Texas. The terminal started LNG import operations in June 2008 and began LNG export operations in 2019.

The Freeport LNG export facility is a three train, 15 million metric tonnes per year (mtpa) liquefaction facility. Japan’s JERA Co. Inc. recently acquired a $2.5 billion stake in the company from Global Infrastructure Partners, which is expected to support the expansion of a fourth liquefaction train, which has already received all regulatory approvals for construction.

Today, Freeport is the seventh largest LNG facility in the world, the second largest in the U.S., and the only U.S. facility to use electric motor-driven technology, according to the release.

“As the only all-electric drive facility of its kind in the U.S., our liquefaction facility produces 90 percent less emissions than other gas turbine-driven facilities,” Michael Smith, founder, chairman and CEO of Freeport LNG, said in the release. “Embarking on carbon capture and sequestration will only further reduce the carbon intensity of our facilities.”

Talos will be the project manager and operator of the Freeport LNG CCS project. The company will be joined by its partner, Storegga Geotechnologies Ltd., the lead developer of the Acorn CCS project in the U.K., which has the potential to be one of the largest operating CCS projects in the world. Talos and Storegga formed an exclusive joint venture in June to source, evaluate and develop CCS project opportunities on the U.S. Gulf Coast and Gulf of Mexico.

“We are delighted to join Talos and Freeport LNG in the Freeport CCS project. ... We expect that this will be the first of several such projects from the Talos-Storegga partnership to serve Gulf Coast industrial CO₂ sources and to contribute meaningfully towards net zero in the United States,” commented Storegga CEO Nick Cooper in the release.

The companies anticipate first injection of the Freeport LNG CCS project by year-end 2024, which Storegga’s Cooper said could also be scaled up materially thereafter.

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