ExxonMobil to invest in UL Lafayette, Vermilion Parish

Vermilion Parish will be home to a landmark CO2 transportation and storage project ExxonMobil is building to help the state’s industries reduce their emissions.
As the University of Louisiana has announced, Exxon Mobil Corp. made the following contributions to the parish and UL.
• Two $50,000 endowed scholarships for first-year students from Vermilion Parish who are pursuing degrees in the university’s College of Engineering or Ray P. Authement College of Sciences.
• $500,000 for outreach efforts in the university’s Energy Institute of Louisiana and Kathleen Babineaux Blanco Public Policy Center.
Representatives from ExxonMobil were joined by members of the University community and local officials during a gift announcement on Wednesday in Abbeville.
“We’re very grateful for ExxonMobil’s generosity and partnership,” said Dr. Joseph Savoie, UL Lafayette president. “The University and ExxonMobil have common commitments to workforce development, environmental stewardship and energy innovation. This multifaceted investment by ExxonMobil touches each of these areas and underscores another value we share with the company – and that’s to be responsible community servants who anticipate tomorrow’s challenges and work to find solutions to them today.”
“I recently visited Vermilion Parish and saw firsthand the extraordinary capabilities of the local workforce in this community,” said Dan Ammann, president of ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions. “We’re looking forward to building a carbon capture project that helps support local industries and Louisiana’s goal to achieve net zero CO2 emissions by 2050.”
Carbon capture and storage – in which CO2 is captured and stored deep underground instead of being released into the atmosphere – is considered an essential solution for meeting net zero goals. It’s a proven technology, but will need to be deployed on a far broader scale than it is today.
“Scaling up carbon capture and sequestration will require a new generation of young people skilled in math and science, technology and engineering,” said Joe Colletti, ExxonMobil Louisiana Asset Manager. “We’re excited about helping build those skills here in Louisiana.”
ExxonMobil will transport and store up to 2 million metric tons a year (MTA) of CO2 from CF industries’ manufacturing site in Donaldsonville and up to 800,000 MTA from Nucor’s direct reduced iron facility in Convent. The combined total is equal to the emissions from more than 600,000 gasoline-powered cars1.
Louisiana also is home to ExxonMobil’s Baton Rougeintegrated refining, chemicals and lubricants complex, the state’s largest manufacturing employer.