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Mar 01, 2024

Biden Funding Could Aid Occidental Petroleum in 'Net Zero Oil' Quest

The Carbon Engineering Direct Air Capture pilot plant in Squamish, British Columbia, Canada. The Biden administration has selected Oxy to run a so-called DAC hub, where it will pilot the technology

The Carbon Engineering Direct Air Capture pilot plant in Squamish, British Columbia, Canada.

The Biden administration has selected Oxy to run a so-called DAC hub, where it will pilot the technology the oil company thinks can save its core fossil fuel business.

When Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s Vicki Hollub introduced the idea of “net zero oil” two years ago, few outside the chief executive officer’s inner circle knew what she meant. It was easy for climate-minded critics to dismiss the rhetoric as a greenwashing ploy from an embattled oil executive trying to stay relevant in a world transitioning away from fossil fuels.

But Hollub’s vision keeps moving closer to reality. This month she helped convince the Biden administration — which has been hostile to Big Oil — to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the technology behind the industry’s most ambitious moonshot to keep fossil fuels alive.