Texas to offer 1.1 million acres of offshore tracts for carbon sequestration leases
Offshore staff
AUSTIN, Texas – The state of Texas plans to put 1.13 million acres of state waters and bays along the Gulf of Mexico up for bid, targeting parties interested in carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects, according to a report from Carbon Herald.
A total of thirteen zones will be opened for bidding, encompassing waters near Brownsville, Freeport, and Galveston, along with areas around Matagorda, Calhoun, and Aransas counties, as outlined in a request for proposals from the Texas General Land Office and the School Land Board.
The announcement comes as confirmation of growing interest in CCS development in Texas state waters, with related interest in the development of the needed transportation network and carbon sequestration capacity.
A growing number of carbon capture projects have been announced over the last several years, according to Carbon Herald. Last September, the Texas General Land Office awarded a Repsol-led partnership a contract for over 140,000 gross acres of pore space owned by the Permanent School Fund for CO2 storage located off Corpus Christi, Texas.
Exxon and Enlink are also reportedly working on offshore CCS development along various Gulf Coast areas, particularly those with high levels of industrial CO2 emissions. These include the Houston Ship Channel, the Mississippi River Corridor, Lake Charles and southwest Louisiana, and Port Arthur and Beaumont, Texas.
More recently in April, Kinder Morgan agreed to lease 10,800 acres from TGS Cedar Port Partners, a rail service operator that oversees a 15,000-acre industrial park near the Houston Ship channel, in a move seen as part of offshore CCS development.
The details of the request for proposals from the Texas General Land Office can be found here.
06.08.2024
