Worley awarded services contract for Canadian project planning to make fuels from direct air capture

Worley has been awarded a services contract by Oxy Low Carbon Ventures, a subsidiary of Occidental, for a facility in British Columbia.

It’s being designed to produce renewable fuels by capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere using Carbon Engineering’s Direct Air Capture and AIR TO FUELS™ technologies.

The facility is expected to produce up to 100 million liters of ultra-low carbon fuel annually. It’s being developed by OLCV and Squamish Huron Clean Energy Corp. and is expected to be the first commercial-scale project of its kind.

When built, the low-carbon fuels are expected to provide a new option for hard-to-decarbonize industries such as marine, air, rail, and truck transportation. This will give transporters the option to reduce their fleets’ carbon dioxide footprint without modifying their vehicles.

Worley is providing early front-end engineering and design (pre-FEED) services for the facility and will act as project integrator for the technology. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2023 with the facility anticipated to be operational by 2026. Upon completion of the pre-FEED, the project is expected to move into the FEED and then the engineering, procurement, fabrication, and construction phase.

Worley is also developing the FEED for a DAC facility, DAC-1, being developed by OLCV’s 1PointFive in the U.S. Permian Basin. It’s expected to capture 1 million metric tons of atmospheric carbon dioxide for permanent storage when completed.

“We’re delighted to have been awarded this contract by OLCV and look forward to building on the relationship we started on the DAC-1 project earlier this year,” said Chris Ashton, CEO of Worley. “The significance of the direct air capture technology being extended to renewables fully aligns with Worley’s purpose of delivering a more sustainable world.”

Richard Jackson of Occidental said, “We’re proud to partner with Carbon Engineering and Huron on the AIR TO FUELS™ project and pleased that Worley will join the team to conduct the pre-FEED. We selected Worley based on our experience working with them and believe their method of driving innovation within their company will advance the development of the AIR TO FUELS™ facility.”