Leatherhead (November 2, 2006) -- Exxon Mobil Corporation today announced its participation in a major European research initiative aimed at evaluating the role that Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology may play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

ExxonMobil will contribute over one million euros and provide expert technical guidance to the CO2ReMoVe project, sponsored by the European Commission Directorate General for Research. Over the next five years, CO2ReMoVe will evaluate a range of technologies to monitor the injection and storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) from gas streams at the Sleipner field in the Norwegian North Sea, the Snohvit field in the Barents Sea, at In Salah in the southern Saharan desert in Algeria and in the German locality of Ketzin. ExxonMobil shares in the ownership of the North Sea Sleipner gas field where over one million tonnes of CO2 have been sequestered each year since 1998.

The project aims to provide a sound scientific basis for establishing guidelines for the certification of future sites for CO2 storage.

“Carbon Capture and Storage is a long-term option with significant potential to reduce CO2 emissions from large sources such as electricity generation,” said Sherri Stuewer, vice-president, Safety, Health and Environment, Exxon Mobil Corporation. “The technology for CCS exists today, but the challenge is to further demonstrate its effectiveness and integrity and to reduce its cost. CO2ReMoVe will play a major role in advancing CCS technology, by monitoring and verifying storage of CO2.”

CCS technology separates CO2 from a gas stream, compresses it to reduce volume, transports it by pipeline to a storage site and sequesters it in geological formations. The technology could have a major impact on greenhouse gas emissions as it could be applicable to many large-emission sources of CO2. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that these large facilities, primarily electricity generation plants, account for nearly 60 per cent of global emissions from energy use.

ExxonMobil is a global leader in the use of technologies that comprise CCS. The corporation has developed and used these technologies for many years commercially at industrial scale in operations that capture CO2 from oil and gas production, transport CO2 to injection sites by pipeline, and inject gas and liquids into oil fields as part of enhanced oil recovery and other operations. A key element of the corporation's support for CO2ReMoVe will be the participation of technical experts from ExxonMobil’s Upstream Research Company.

Along with ExxonMobil, energy industry participants in the CO2ReMoVe project include BP, ConocoPhillips, Schlumberger, Statoil, Total, Vattenfall and Wintershall.

Other participants include the International Energy Agency; DNV, an organisation specialising in risk management in the oil and gas industry; and a number of national agencies and academic research organisations. The European Union will contribute eight million euros to the project, with the balance of seven million euros coming from the other participants. The project will be coordinated by the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO).

In addition to CO2ReMoVe, ExxonMobil is also an active supporter of other research into climate science and technologies to reduce the risks of climate change. ExxonMobil worked to establish and is providing $100 million to Stanford University’s Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP), a major long-term research programme designed to accelerate development of a range of commercially viable energy technologies that can lower greenhouse emissions on a world scale. Research into CCS forms an important part of GCEP.

CCS is also the subject of ExxonMobil-supported research at the International Energy Agency Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Texas. ExxonMobil also conducts internal research into CCS-related technologies to support the corporation’s commercial operations.

Notes to editors
See also:

• The project press release issued by the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) who are coordinating the initiative.
• Capturing Carbon an Opinion Editorial published by Exxon Mobil Corporation.
• And, to learn more about Carbon Capture and Storage, see the report Tomorrow's Energy (PDF).