ExxonMobil is developing a plan to serve industrial customers in the Houston region with carbon capture, transport and storage facilities, according to the Financial Times. The project would be designed to cater to the 50 most carbon-polluting industrial facilities along the Houston Ship Channel, including oil refineries and petrochemical plants, piping collected carbon dioxide to a storage site in the Gulf of Mexico. Up to 100 million tonnes of CO­₂ could be collected and stored per year by the year 2040 under the scheme, around 2% of current US national emissions. Joe Blommaert, head of ExxonMobil’s recently-established Low Carbon Solutions, told reporters that CCS “should be a key part of the US strategy for meeting its Paris goals and included as part of the administration’s upcoming Nationally Determined Contributions”, the company clearly aligning itself to business conditions created by increased shareholder pressure and the new administration of President Joe Biden. ExxonMobil has also said that a price on carbon would be important for making environmental sustainability financially sustainable, along with other support mechanisms for CCS, such as the mooted SCALES Act.