CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: CF), the world’s largest ammonia producer, announced on July 25, 2024, that it is advancing a carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) project at its Yazoo City, Mississippi Complex. This initiative aims to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the facility by up to 500,000 metric tons annually. As part of the project, CF Industries has signed a definitive commercial agreement with ExxonMobil for the transportation and permanent geologic storage of the CO2, with sequestration expected to begin in 2028.

CF Industries will invest approximately $100 million into its Yazoo City Complex to construct a CO2 dehydration and compression unit. This will enable the capture of up to 500,000 metric tons of CO2, generated as a byproduct of the ammonia production process, for transport and storage. Once ExxonMobil begins sequestration, CF Industries anticipates that the project will qualify for tax credits under Section 45Q of the Internal Revenue Code, which offers a credit per metric ton of CO2 sequestered.

“We’re thrilled to move forward with another major decarbonization initiative, positioning CF Industries at the forefront of low-carbon ammonia production and supporting our 2030 emissions intensity reduction goal,” said Tony Will, President and CEO of CF Industries Holdings, Inc. “This project will also enhance the availability of nitrogen products with reduced carbon intensity for customers aiming to lower their carbon footprint.”

Once sequestration begins, the Yazoo City Complex will be able to produce products with a significantly lower carbon intensity compared to conventional ammonia production sites. Most of the ammonia produced at the Yazoo City Complex is converted into nitrogen fertilizers, such as urea ammonium nitrate (UAN) solutions and ammonium nitrate (AN), or into diesel exhaust fluid, which reduces NOx emissions from diesel trucks. AN produced at Yazoo City is used both as a fertilizer and by the mining industry as a component of explosives. Demand for these lower-carbon intensity products is expected to rise significantly as the agriculture and mining industries work to reduce carbon emissions in their supply chains.

The Yazoo City CCS project marks CF Industries' second major decarbonization initiative utilizing CCS technologies and its second collaboration with ExxonMobil. The companies are also advancing a CCS project at CF Industries' Donaldsonville, Louisiana facility, which will sequester up to 2 million tons of CO2 annually that would otherwise be emitted into the atmosphere. Sequestration for the Donaldsonville project is slated to begin in 2025. The execution of both the Donaldsonville and Yazoo City CCS projects will allow CF Industries to achieve its 2030 emissions intensity reduction target.