BP PLC (LSE:LON:BP.) has begun drilling an appraisal well in Texas for its planned US carbon capture and sequestration operations.
The FTSE 100 oil and gas giant and German industrial gas firm Linde announced in May they planned to develop a site along the Texas coast for burying carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by Linde's Houston manufacturing facility.
Linde and BP's large carbon-capture-and-storage project is scheduled to open in 2026, and will initially focus on making blue hydrogen from natural gas with resulting captured CO2 made available to Linde's H2 customers through its pipeline network in the region.
It is also expected that the system will be able to capture CO2 from other industrial sites.
While BP will build and handle the permit of permanent geological storage wells with an annual capacity of 15mln metric tonnes, Linde is to contribute its CO2 separation, capture, and compression technologies.
"We are currently using our subsurface and expertise to drill an appraisal well, for our US carbon capture and storage business," said Jack Collins, finance chief of BP's BPX Energy shale subsidiary, whilst at the EnerCom conference, though he declined to provide details.
According to a filing with Texas' energy regulator, the Texas Railroad Commission, BP received state approval in April for an exploratory well to be drilled in Galveston County.
The well was not intended to target or produce hydrocarbons though according to the permit.