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Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) won’t transfer ahead with one of many world’s largest low-carbon hydrogen tasks if the Biden administration withholds tax incentives for pure gas-fed services, CEO Darren Woods informed Bloomberg on the CERAWeek by S&P International convention on Monday.
Beneath present tips, incentives are earmarked for tasks that produce “inexperienced” hydrogen by utilizing water and renewable power, however Exxon (XOM) believes it might probably produce “blue” hydrogen from fuel by trapping carbon emissions; in consequence, Woods stated the corporate’s proposed Houston-area facility ought to qualify for tax credit below the Inflation Discount Act.
Giving choice to inexperienced hydrogen over blue hydrogen would quantity to a authorities try and favor sure applied sciences moderately than merely specializing in chopping total emissions, Woods stated within the interview.
Exxon (XOM) has stated its deliberate Baytown, Texas, undertaking might produce 1B cf/day of hydrogen and seize 98% of related carbon, serving to scale back emissions at its adjoining oil refinery by as a lot as one third.
“We’re investing billions of {dollars} to scale back the carbon depth of our pure fuel,” Woods informed Bloomberg, including that failure of the Inflation Discount Act to present firms credit score would “mainly immediately cease investments to scale back carbon depth by the business as a complete.”
To set the world in movement to attain web zero by 2050, a broad recognition is required of the price and timeline of transferring from a fossil-fuel based mostly power system to a low-carbon system, the CEO stated.
“The narrative and quite a lot of the activists on this house have made it a one-dimensional problem which is simply eliminate oil and fuel, fossil fuels and coal,” Woods stated. “You may’t quit the advantages that shortly. Society cannot tolerate that, the hardships that include the shortage of these advantages.”
Woods additionally stated at CERAWeek that Exxon (XOM) isn’t excited by shopping for Hess, however the firm needs the proper to determine the worth of the corporate’s Guyana stake, then think about the potential of shopping for the stake whether it is profitable in arbitration.
