Air Products announced the company will develop a $4.5 billion clean energy complex near Burnside in Ascension Parish.
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This will also be the world’s largest permanent carbon dioxide sequestration endeavor to date. Air Products will construct a blue hydrogen manufacturing complex to produce more than 750 million standard cubic feet per day of blue hydrogen, with carbon dioxide from the manufacturing process captured and permanently sequestered.
The plant will be the first carbon-capture project in Louisiana for Air Products, a world-leading industrial gas manufacturer that provides hydrogen and other gases to refineries, petrochemical plants and other customers in Louisiana, across the Gulf Coast and around the globe.
The project will create 170 new direct jobs with an average annual salary of $93,000, plus benefits. Louisiana Economic Development estimates it will result in 413 new indirect jobs, for a total of 583 new jobs for Ascension Parish and the Capital Region.
Air Products also will retain 334 existing jobs in the state. The company estimates the project will create more than 2,000 construction jobs over three years.
About 95 percent of the carbon dioxide generated at the Air Products facility will be captured, compressed and transported by pipeline to multiple inland sequestration sites located along a pipeline corridor extending up to 35 miles to the east of the complex.
More than five million metric tons per year of carbon dioxide will be permanently sequestered in geologic pore space secured from the State of Louisiana about a mile below ground. Air Products has received approval from the State Mineral and Energy Board for the permanent sequestration of the carbon dioxide.
To secure the proposed project, the State of Louisiana offered Air Products a competitive incentive package that includes the comprehensive workforce solutions of LED FastStart the nation’s No. 1 state workforce development program for the past 12 years.
Air Products also was offered a performance-based grant of up to $5 million to offset plant and pipeline construction costs; that grant is payable over five years, subject to the company meeting specified investment and job creation benchmarks. The company also is expected to utilize the state’s Industrial Tax Exemption and Quality Jobs programs. ■
A low pressure wave forming along a cold front will track across the New England coast this morning, bringing a period of rain, heavy at times for much of New England, especially for Maine today.