Occidental Petroleum's STRATOS direct air capture hub in Texas: what it means for US carbon removal

Occidental Petroleum is building the STRATOS direct air capture hub in Ector County, Texas, designed to pull up to 500,000 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere each year. The project uses fans, chemical sorbents, and low-carbon energy to capture CO2, which can then be stored underground in saline formations or sold for use in products like synthetic fuels. Occidental's subsidiary 1PointFive has already signed multi-year offtake agreements with corporate customers, de-risking the capital investment. The STRATOS hub is one of the first commercial-scale DAC plants globally and benefits from the expanded Section 45Q tax credit in the US. The project is designed for modular replication, potentially lowering costs for future plants. It also integrates with existing CO2 pipeline networks and storage reservoirs in the Permian Basin, creating a regional carbon management ecosystem. This positions Occidental to build a fee-based carbon removal business alongside its traditional oil and gas operations.