By Sabrina Valle
HOUSTON (Reuters) – Exxon Mobil Corp’s bids on Wednesday for 94 shallow water blocks could be preparation for the company’s first carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in the region, said an energy analyst.
The bids are “potentially the first time federal Gulf of Mexico acreage has been leased for purposes other than the extraction of hydrocarbons,” Rystad Energy oil analyst Colin White said.
Exxon snapped up nearly a third of the tracts that sold, for $14.9 million, making it the biggest buyer by acreage at a federal auction of oil leases on Wednesday.An Exxon spokesperson said the company will evaluate the seismic and subsurface geology for future commercial potential, declining to comment on its potential use for carbon storage.
In April, Exxon floated an up to $100 billion proposal for a public-private carbon storage project that would collect planet-warming emissions from U.S. petrochemical plants and bury them in deep under the Gulf of Mexico.
(Reporting by Sabrina Valle, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien and Aurora Ellis)
