Wintershall Dea, YPF, Argentina's national energy company, and Dow, a global materials science leader, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to jointly assess potential carbon capture and storage (CCS) opportunities in Argentina.
The MoU defines a period of twelve months, where the technical teams of the companies will jointly work to identify potential suitable locations for CCS in the surroundings of the Bahía Blanca port industrial conglomerate.
The proximity to the industrial cluster with its CO2 emissions in Bahía Blanca could also facilitate the production of natural gas-based, low-carbon hydrogen.
“As a technology, CCS will play an important role globally in decarbonizing industries and achieving climate targets – wherever CO2 emissions cannot be avoided for the time being. We look forward to contributing our expertise and experience from our European CCS projects to assess CCS potential here in Argentina”, explains Mario Mehren, CEO of Wintershall Dea.
Matías Campodónico, President of Dow Argentina and the South Region of Latin America says: “Decarbonization is a complex challenge we are determined to not only meet but lead in our industry. At Dow, we are taking a comprehensive and phased approach to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, while meeting customers’ increasing demands for more sustainable and circular products. Our goal is ambitious, and we must work together with experts to achieve it.”
Wintershall Dea is actively involved in the development of CCS infrastructure for unavoidable industrial emissions, currently primarily in Northwestern Europe. One example is the Greensand project, in which the entire cross-border CCS value chain was successfully demonstrated for the first time in the European Union in spring 2023. CO2 from a Belgian industrial company was stored in a depleted oil field in the Danish North Sea.
“As one of the major gas producers in Argentina, we continue to explore ways to expand and diversify our portfolio in the country, including in the field of hydrogen and carbon emissions management”, explains Manfred Böckmann, Managing Director of Wintershall Dea Argentina. “We are delighted to be part of this partnership and to be working with YPF and Dow in Argentina on this important energy transition topic”, Böckmann emphasises.
