The Minnow vs the Whale
While the world hunkered down two years ago in the throes of COVID, Tim Duncan, CEO of Houston-based offshore producer Talos Energy, rallied a team to explore building a carbon capture and storage (CCS) business. Since then, several monster CCS projects have been announced by heavyweights Exxon and Occidental Petroleum to capture carbon from heavy emitters and permanently bury the stuff underground. But Talos discovered early it had two distinct advantages over the whales in the game to enter a commercial industry that’s still on a tricycle: size and seismic. Reese Energy Consulting today is following the latest news from Talos, which in short order has made leaps, bounds, partnerships, and joint ventures to build four CCS hubs along the Texas and La., Gulf Coast. Talos is a fraction of the size of Exxon and Oxy, which makes it nimbler to move and deploy quicker. The company also found that its seismic data used to identify oil reservoirs also can recognize carbon sequestration sites. That little nugget has led to big alliances with Chevron, Freeport LNG, Howard Energy, and EnLink, of which Chevron snagged a 50% ownership in one hub for $50 million.