Baker Hughes will supply equipment for Blue Point Number One, a $4 billion low-carbon ammonia plant being developed in Louisiana. Photo courtesy Technip Energies.
Houston-based energy technology company Baker Hughes has been tapped to supply equipment for what will be the world’s largest low-carbon ammonia plant.
French technology and engineering company Technip Energies will buy a steam turbine generator and compression equipment from Baker Hughes for Blue Point Number One, a $4 billion low-carbon ammonia plant being developed in Louisiana by a joint venture comprising CF Industries, JERA and Mitsui & Co. Technip was awarded a contract worth at least $1.1 billion to provide services for the Blue Point project.
CF, a producer of ammonia and nitrogen, owns a 40 percent stake in the joint venture, with JERA, Japan’s largest power generator, at 35 percent and Mitsui, a Japanese industrial conglomerate, at 25 percent.
The Blue Point Number One project, to be located at CF’s Blue Point ammonia production facility, will be capable of producing about 1.4 million metric tons of low-carbon ammonia per year and permanently storing up to 2.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.
Construction of the ammonia-making facility is expected to start in 2026, with production of low-carbon ammonia set to get underway in 2029.
“Ammonia, as a lower-carbon energy source, is poised to play a pivotal role in enabling and accelerating global sustainable energy development,” Alessandro Bresciani, senior vice president of energy equipment at Baker Hughes, said in a news release.
Earlier this year, British engineering and industrial gas company Linde signed a long-term contract to supply industrial gases for Blue Point Number One. Linde Engineering Americas is based in Houston.
The new Carbon Measures coalition will create a framework that eliminates double-counting of carbon pollution and attributes emissions to their sources. Photo via Getty Images.
Six companies with a large presence in the Houston area have joined a new coalition of companies pursuing a better way to track the carbon emissions of products they manufacture, purchase and finance.
Air Liquide, whose U.S. headquarters is in Houston
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, whose U.S. headquarters is in Houston
Honeywell, whose Performance Materials and Technologies business is based in Houston.
BASF, whose global oilfield solutions business is based in Houston
Linde, whose Linde Engineering Americas business is based in Houston
Carbon Measures will create an accounting framework that eliminates double-counting of carbon pollution and attributes emissions to their sources, said Amy Brachio, the group’s CEO. The model is expected to take two years to develop, and between five and seven years to scale up, Bloomberg reported.
The coalition wants to create a system that will “unleash markets and competition,” unlock investments and speed up the pace of emissions reduction, said Brachio, former vice chair of sustainability at professional services firm EY.
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it,” said Darren Woods, chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil. “The first step to reducing global emissions is to know where they’re coming from — and today, we don’t have an accurate system to do this.”
Other members of the coalition include BlackRock-owned Global Infrastructure Partners, Banco Satanader, EY and NextEra Energy.
“Transparent and consistent emissions accounting is not just a technical necessity — it’s a strategic imperative. It enables smarter decisions and accelerates real progress across industries and borders,” said Ken West, president and CEO of Honeywell Energy and Sustainability Solutions.
OCI broke ground on the project in 2022. Photo via oci-global.com
Woodside Energy has announced its acquiring a Beaumont, Texas, clean ammonia project that's slated to deliver its first ammonia by 2025 and lower carbon ammonia by 2026.
The agreement is for Woodside to acquire 100 percent of OCI Clean Ammonia Holding and its lower carbon ammonia project in Beaumont in an all-cash deal of approximately $2.35 billion. According to Woodside CEO Meg O’Neill, the acquisition positions Woodside as an early mover in clean ammonia within the energy transition.
“This transaction positions Woodside in the growing lower carbon ammonia market," O’Neill says in a news release. "The potential applications for lower carbon ammonia are in power generation, marine fuels and as an industrial feedstock, as it displaces higher-emitting fuels.
“Global ammonia demand is forecast to double by 2050, with lower carbon ammonia making up nearly two-thirds of total demand," she continues. “This Project exceeds our capital allocation framework targets for new energy projects. Both phases are expected to achieve an internal rate of return above 10 percent and payback of less than 10 years."
OCI broke ground on the project in 2022. It's reportedly the world’s first ammonia plant paired with auto thermal reforming with over 95 percent carbon dioxide capture.
Phase 1 of the project will have a capacity of 1.1 million tonnes per annum and is currently under construction. The first ammonia production will be derived from natural gas and is slated for 2025, with lower carbon ammonia production — derived from natural gas paired with carbon sequestration — is expected in in 2026 following commencement of CCS operations
According to the release, Phase 2 will have the capacity to abate 3.2 million tonnes per annum CO2-e, "or over 60 percent of our Scope 3 abatement target,” O’Neill explains.
Linde will source the nitrogen and lower carbon hydrogen feedstock from its feedstock facility, which is currently under construction with a targeted completion in early 2026. In the meantime, early supply of feedstock for the project will come from various suppliers including Linde. Per the release, CCS services will be provided to Linde by ExxonMobil and are expected to be available in 2026.
The rig stands 225 feet tall and extends 8,000 feet below the subsurface. Photo via exxonmobil.com
ExxonMobil announced this month that it has officially broken ground on a groundbreaking carbon dioxide storage site.
According to a release from the company, a new rig is currently being used to gather information about an underground site in Southeast Texas. The rig stands 225 feet tall, but more importantly extends 8,000 feet below the subsurface to investigate if the site is a safe place to store carbon underground.
“Everyone’s excited about this appraisal well because we’re literally breaking ground on a new chapter of our work to help reduce industrial emissions,” Joe Colletti, who oversees carbon capture and storage development along the Gulf Coast for Exxon, says in a statement.
Exxon plans to move the rig to other sites in the Gulf Coast in the future for clients Nucor Corp., CF Industries and Linde.
In the last year, Exxon has made agreements with these regional companies to store carbon captured from their operations.
Exxon agreed to transport and permanently store up to 2.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year from Linde’s hydrogen production facility in Beaumont, Texas when it launches in 2025.
Exxon agreed to store up to 2 million metric tons per year of CO2 captured from CF Industries’ ammonia plant in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, starting in 2025.
Exxon agreed to capture, transport and store up to 800,000 metric tons per year of CO2 from Nucor’s direct reduced iron manufacturing site in Convent, Louisiana starting in 2026.
Together, the three agreements represent a total of 5 million metric tons per year that Exxon plans to transport and store for third-party customers.
“Our agreement with Nucor is the latest example of how we’re delivering on our mission to help accelerate the world's path to net zero and build a compelling new business,” Dan Ammann, president of ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions, says in a statement over the summer. “Momentum is building as customers recognize our ability to solve emission challenges at scale.”
In addition to the carbon storage agreements, the energy giant also completed the acquisition of Denbury Inc. this month in an all-stock transaction valued at $4.9 billion. The deal adds more than 1,300 miles, including nearly 925 miles of CO2 pipelines in Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi to Exxon's CO2 pipeline network.
The Houston energy transition ecosystem is primed for collaborative partnerships – but here's what to keep in mind. Photo courtesy of Digital Wildcatters
When it comes to advancing the energy transition in Houston and beyond, experts seem to agree that collaborations between all major stakeholders is extremely important.
In fact, it was so important that it was the first panel of the second day of FUZE, an energy-focused conference put on by Digital Wildcatters. EnergyCapital HTX and InnovationMap were the event's media partners, and I, as editor of these news outlets, moderated the panel about collaborations.
I wanted to take a second to reflect on the conversation I had with the panelists earlier this week, as I believe their input and expertise — from corporate and nonprofit to startup and investing — was extremely valuable to the greater energy transition community.
Here were my three takeaways from the panel, titled "Collaborative Partnerships: Leveraging synergy in the energy sector."
Early-stage tech startups need bridges to cross their valleys.
The energy transition is a long game — and an expensive one, as Jane Stricker, executive director of the Houston Energy Transition Initiative, explains on the panel. And, just like most startups, the path to commercialization and profitability is long — and definitely not promised.
"When you look at innovation and startups, the multiple valleys of death a startup will go through on their journey, we have to find more ways to bridge those valleys and get more technology to get up that mountain and to a place where it can be scaled," she says.
She explains that corporations aren't always good at innovating, but they are impactful about rolling out de-risked technology at a global scale. But the technology has to get to that point first, so it takes a much earlier intervention for corporates — or another entity, like incubators and accelerators — to help in that developmental process.
"In Houston we have the potential to build out that ecosystem — we already have a lot of pieces in place, so it's about connecting the dots," Stricker says. "It's only by all of the different parts of the ecosystem understanding what each other does and what unique role they play in the process that we can really leverage the strengths of each of them to help create those partnerships and opportunities."
As Amy Henry, CEO of EUNIKE Ventures explains, corporates have their own challenges.
"Energy companies themselves have their own valley of death, and from where they are sitting, that's why they need to collaborate," she says on the panel. "And now we're talking about an unprecedented rate of getting technology commercialized."
EUNIKE works as a go between for corporates — almost as an expansion for them, Henry explains, and they are facing a challenging time too.
"Energy companies are just not early adopters of technology," she says. "But they are also going through their own transformation. At the same time, you've had this huge knowledge leakage in terms of all the workforce reduction."
Startups and corporates speak a different language.
Moji Karimi has had several partnerships with corporations with his biotech startup Cemvita Factory, including a recent offtake agreement with United. For Karimi, it's about learning about your corporate partner.
"In partnerships, especially for startups, you need to understand what is the language of love for the company at time," he says on the panel. "Is it growth, is it perception and PR, is it deployment of capital, or is there a specific bottleneck that we can help remove."
For HETI, Striker says they hope to act as a translator between the two parties.
"How do we enable more connectivity between the companies that have a technology that may be of interest to the larger companies looking for a solution?" Striker explains of HETI's mission. "And how do we make sure industry is communicating opening and broadly?"
Now is the time for action.
For Karimi, the solution is simple: More action is needed.
"Generally, we just need to talk less and do more," he says of what he wants to see from corporates, adding that more checks need to be written.
Based on his own experience, Karimi says some corporates are better to work with than others. He says he prefers working with the companies that don't try to mix in their startup pilots with the "bread and butter" of the business.
"Everyone has so much on their plate," he says, giving the example of Oxy Low Carbon Ventures being an offshoot of Oxy's main business.
Karimi says corporates should think of their startup pilots as an opportunity to try something new and different — something they'd never be able to test internally.
David Maher, business development director of Americas at Linde, says now that there's been regulatory framework, Linde knows what to invest in. The company has a particular interest in hydrogen.
"Another big piece of it is scale," Maher says of what Linde thinks about when considering innovative partnerships. "What's great about Houston is we have density and scale already."
Nearly 20 companies from Houston, ranging from global multinationals to innovative startups, joined the team at Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Illinois, for a full day of meetings, discussions, and networking focused on advancing innovation, commercialization, and industry collaboration.
The fly-in organized by the Houston Energy Transition Initiative, provided a unique opportunity for companies to engage directly with Argonne researchers, technical experts, and leadership while gaining a deeper understanding of the laboratory’s world-class capabilities. Participants explored how national laboratories can help bridge the gap between breakthrough research and commercial deployment, particularly in areas critical to U.S. competitiveness and economic growth.
The significance of this engagement extends beyond a single visit. While the U.S. Department of Energy operates 17 national laboratories, none is located along the Gulf Coast, a region uniquely home to industry, infrastructure, and energy systems at commercial scale. HETI’s continued work with the national laboratories helps bridge that geographic and operational gap by connecting world-class scientific research with companies that understand how to scale and deploy technologies. The Argonne fly-in also created space to address practical barriers to collaboration, including complex agreements and lengthy contracting timelines, and to explore ways to establish partnership frameworks more efficiently.
Explore HETI’s key takeaways from the fly-in:
1. Scaling Technologies for Commercial Use
A central theme was the importance of scale-up infrastructure and the role Argonne plays in helping companies reduce technical and manufacturing risks. Participants learned how facilities such as the Materials Engineering Research Facility (MERF) support the transition from laboratory discoveries to pilot-scale production and ultimately commercial manufacturing. These capabilities are especially valuable for companies working to move promising technologies from concept to market.
The discussions also highlighted Argonne’s extensive work in critical materials, battery recycling, advanced manufacturing, and supply chain resilience. Attendees learned about initiatives including the ReCell Center, AI-enabled materials discovery, and advanced modeling tools that can help businesses understand supply chain vulnerabilities and evaluate mitigation strategies. These capabilities have applications across energy, chemicals, manufacturing, semiconductors, defense, and emerging technologies.
2. Creating Pathways for Collaboration
Another key takeaway was the importance of engaging early. Companies do not need to arrive with a fully developed project or solution. Argonne offers multiple pathways for collaboration, including sponsored research, user facility access, technology licensing, pilot-scale testing, and Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs). These partnerships help companies access specialized expertise, facilities, and analytical tools that can accelerate innovation and commercialization
3. Building Connections Across Industry and Research
The fly-in reinforced the value of relationship building. Bringing together nearly 20 organizations in one place created meaningful opportunities for collaboration, knowledge sharing, and identifying future projects.
The conversations throughout the day demonstrated a shared commitment to strengthening domestic innovation, developing resilient supply chains, and creating pathways to bring new technologies to market.
Fervo Energy’s flagship project in Utah just generated its first geothermal power.
The electricity is now flowing to the power grid from one of Cape Station’s three generation units, Houston-based Fervo said in a news release. This represents an early but important milestone for the project, as the unit isn’t scheduled to deliver contracted power until Oct. 1.
The achievement, coming four months after Fervo’s roughly $2.2 billion IPO, demonstrates the viability of enhanced geothermal systems (EGS).
“This is a gamechanger for the geothermal industry. It establishes EGS as the defining new power generation technology of our time, and we believe it shows that the commercial and technical maturity of EGS is ready to meet the urgent need for reliable, clean power,” Tim Latimer, co-founder and CEO of Fervo, said in the release.
The plant’s two other units are scheduled to launch commercial operations on Jan. 1.
The three units make up the project’s 99-megawatt first phase. The next phase, which will add 400 megawatts of capacity, is under construction. The second phase is set to go online in 2028.
Altogether, Cape Station will provide more than 4 gigawatts of capacity, with 900 megawatts already spoken for. The 900 megawatts of contracted electricity would be enough to power nearly 1 million U.S. homes per year.
“Cape Station works because we treated the subsurface like an engineering challenge,” Jack Norbeck, co-founder and chief technology officer of Fervo, added in the release. “Years of drilling, completion design, subsurface modeling, and flow testing led to this moment, and this is the validation that matters most.”
Enhanced geothermal continuously draws on heat that’s deep underground, producing electricity around the clock regardless of weather or time of day. That makes it one of the only carbon-free resources capable of constant power delivery, which is critical for data centers and AI infrastructure.
While hundreds of thousands descend on New York for Climate Week, Houston offered a different proposition: come where the work is being built. And last week Houston proved that it’s solving for more energy and fewer emissions; reliability and affordability; speed and durability. We are solving for the “&.”
That equation sharpened last week. On Sept. 14, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it had repealed most 2024 federal carbon-pollution standards for power plants and proposed rescinding remaining greenhouse-gas requirements. Policy matters, but it can pivot. The need to build does not.
HECW is a proving ground, not another conference stop. As I wrote in the Houston Chronicle, Mayor Sylvester Turner planted the seed by insisting we bring people together across the city and industry to drive Houston’s energy future. He knew false choices have no place here: oil and gas and clean technology; prosperity and stewardship; industry and lower emissions.
ECW joined the Climate Week Network this year, connecting Houston to a growing community of more than 500,000 people across 22-plus cities. We now have a seat at the global table—and a responsibility to use it well, building with other cities and the wider clean-energy-solutions world rather than merely talking at them.
The capital is already moving. Since 2017, Houston Energy Transition Initiative member companies have invested more than $95 billion in low-carbon infrastructure, technologies, and research and development. This is where the transition is financed, engineered, tested and operated. But the work requires more than capital. It requires capital allocators who understand the difference between a promising idea and a project that can scale, hire and endure.
Last week was Houston’s show and tell. At ARTECHOUSE, The &Bassador Reception & Awards brought art, technology, culture, philanthropy and energy together. Then the week went beyond downtown.
Sugar Land Town Square became the launchpad for the Metro Innovation Tour & Market: a place for an ecosystem conversation about smart cities, clean energy, equitable access and next-generation mobility before participants boarded three tour routes across greater Houston. It was also the starting point for the Bay City South Innovation Tour to Erthos Project Bravo in Matagorda County, where small groups saw Earth Mount solar modules being installed in real time. The conversation did not end at a panel. It went to the project site.
The HTX Tech Tours included a visit to the Erthos Project Bravo in Matagorda County. Photo courtesy
Approximately 100 startups from around the world pitched at Rice Alliance, Greentown Labs and Halliburton Labs events. At Astros Night at Daikin Park, builders, backers, and believers traded conference rooms for the diamond, creating an experience, not just another event. That is how this work becomes civic fabric.
Activation also means making the energy story felt, not merely explained. AY Young brought the Battery Tour for live performances. It was a reminder that the “Power of &” is not confined to a boardroom or a laboratory. Art and technology, culture and commerce, a new generation and established industry can share the same stage—and help more people see themselves in the work ahead.
Perhaps no activation made the “Power of &” more immediate and real than the Houston, We Have Solutions open mic night. At Creatopia’s Innovation Studio, people took the mic—or simply listened—to share what they were building, the problem they could not stop thinking about, and the connection they hoped to make. It put founders, artists, community builders, researchers and future-makers in one room. That is collaboration in real time: different kinds of expertise meeting before anyone knows exactly what the solution will be.
FOX26 helped carry that story beyond the rooms we convened, hosting Erthos COO Jessica Knight, Mars Materials co-founder Aaron Fitzgerald, and investors Taylor Chapman and Juliana Garaizar to discuss building and backing the future in Houston. Our region should be proud—not as self-congratulation, but because the world is beginning to experience energy and climate solutions firsthand.
This was also a week to give back. Allies in Energy awarded $27,500 to nine organizations advancing energy and climate literacy, civil dialogue, workforce pathways and community action. NRG Energy’s Brighter Communities provided a founding gift to expand the week and fund local grants. It took partners, hosts, sponsors, volunteers, funders and community organizations. That is the “Power of &”: collaboration that leaves a stronger community behind.
The “Power of &” cannot stop at Houston’s city limits. Louisiana’s participation—through its support of the Digital Delta Symposium & Expo—made clear that Houston’s builder ecosystem is regional by necessity. Gulf Coast infrastructure, supply chains, talent, and industrial decisions do not recognize state lines. Neither should our collaboration. If we are serious about building more energy with fewer emissions, we must align capital, resources and opportunity across the entire Gulf Coast.
That same commitment to practical collaboration means listening, learning and adjusting. A builder’s mindset does not protect a plan simply because it came first; it improves the conditions for the work to succeed. That is why Houston Energy and Climate Week will move to April 4–10, 2027—better weather, more time and space for connection, and a stronger city-wide experience for the people building what comes next.
But the real test begins now. Can we keep widening the circle? Can we continue to turn research into projects, pilots into infrastructure, capital into good jobs and climate ambition into results that families and communities can see? Can we make every new solution stronger by bringing in the people who must finance it, build it, operate it, live beside it and benefit from it?
That is the work ahead. Turner understood that Houston does not move forward by asking who wins the argument. It moves forward by asking who is ready to solve the problem. His legacy—and the promise of the “&”—is an invitation to choose collaboration over division, action over performance and possibility over false choices.
The future does not need another city to talk about it. It needs Houston to keep building it. And it will only be built if we keep choosing the "&."
The HTX Tech Tours included a visit to the Erthos Project Bravo in Matagorda County. Photo courtesy