If we can do that offshore, we obviously will. If it takes going onshore to do that, then we’ll focus on onshore, but it will be a function of the returns of the projects.
Biraj Borkhataria: Okay. Thank you very much.
Operator: The next question is from Josh Silverstein of UBS.
Josh Silverstein : Good morning, guys. Just wanted to see if I can get an update on the timing of the gas to power project in Guyana, and what benefits this may have to cost and operations in the country, and if there are any other projects like this that you guys may be looking at over time. Thanks.
Darren Woods: Yeah, sure. I think this is something that we’ve been engaged with the government on for quite some time. I think as we look at going into some of the countries that are on a growth path, on a developing path, we look for opportunities of how our footprint and presence in those countries and markets can help the people in the community and this is a great example of that, of getting the gas that’s produced offshore, onshore, so they can replace what is a relatively inefficient, high-emissions power generation system that’s fairly unreliable with something that’s cleaner, lower emissions, and much more reliable and should be much more cost-effective. And so I think it’s kind of a win-win proposition, particularly for the people of Guyana.
So we’re working on bringing that gas to shore. Our expectation is we’ll have that brought up sometime end of 2024. Obviously the government’s working on the receiving end of that gas and responsible for putting in the power station. That’s an independent project that’s developing. We’re also working on the distribution system. And so it’s really – I think the impact of that will come when we get both pieces together and get that linked up and effectively delivering power to the market.
Operator: The next question is from Paul Cheng of Scotiabank.
Paul Cheng: Thank you. Hi, good morning. Darren, in the presentation you talked about the direct air capture. Can you give us some idea there? And you’re saying that you aim to reduce the cost by half, and that won’t be sufficient. So what will be needed in order – how much is the actual cost reduction from the current level in order for that to be competitive or that to be a real business for you? And also, can you talk about that, how your approach or technology is different than what’s currently in the market, especially one of your competitors in the U.S., they already have a – they said that they have a commercial operation ready, and it’s going to come on stream very, very soon. Thank you.
Darren Woods: Yeah, sure. Good morning, Paul. Yeah, what I would say with – may I start with the last point of your comment, which is, yeah, there are alternatives out there today versus what we’re working on. The issue is the cost associated with them. And we’re not looking at what we can commercialize in the short term based on what I would say is a very narrow market of limited customers who are willing to pay a very high price to demonstrate a level of decarbonization. We’re focused on how we can make this technology broadly applicable at a cost that society can afford. So that’s – we are very focused on the long term, not the short term. And our view is the available technologies today don’t meet the cost requirements.
That’s somewhere between the $600,000 per ton of CO2 removed, and our view is if you try to apply that across the emissions challenge the planet has, the world won’t be able to pay for that, so we’ve got to find a reduction. Our cost, we’ve set an initial target of cutting the cost in half, just because that is a significant step change, recognizing it won’t be enough. If we can get the technology, if we can develop the technology to a point that we’re successful there, that gets us on this path and demonstrates the value of the concepts that we are developing to keep on going and drive further down. With respect to the technology and how it compares to what’s commercially available out there, I would say part of the reason why this is proprietary technology is today its proprietary and so I’m going to keep it that way.
I would say, it is a brand-new approach. There are others who are out there working on new approaches as well, which frankly we’re happy about. This is a tough challenge to break and I’m not pretending like we’re going to be the ones to solve it, but I am confident that we will give it our all, applying our capabilities, others are doing that. As I said in my prepared remarks that we posted, if there’s a breakthrough, it doesn’t so much matter who has the breakthrough. I think we’re going to have a role to play, because once we have a technology that gets to the right cost level, you are going to need global deployment at scale. And I suspect that the technology that will be required for the future lower cost direct air capture, will be different than what we’ve got today and will require some of the technical capabilities that we have.
So I see a role for us in the future if this nut gets cracked. We feel good about what we’ve seen so far, but we’re very early into it, and we’re hopeful that we’ll make the progress that we’re aspiring to and continue to drive the cost down. Your last point you asked, I think to me, if you’re going to be – if the world’s – if it’s going to be affordable, you’ve got to get into $100-ish a ton of CO2 to start talking about broad deployment around the world. I think that’s ultimately where we need to get to.
Marina Matselinskaya: Thank you everybody for joining the call and for your questions today. We will post the transcript of our Q&A session on our investor website next week. Additionally, we look forward to connecting again on May 29th for our Annual Shareholders Meeting. Now let me turn it back to the operator to close the call.
Operator: This concludes today’s call. We thank everyone again for their participation.
