Norton Rose Fulbright advises Mitsui in Texas carbon storage project joint venture

A team of projects lawyers from Norton Rose Fulbright represented MEP Low Carbon Solutions (Mitsui) in the formation of a joint venture with affiliates of Carbonvert LLC and Repsol USA to develop offshore carbon storage projects in Corpus Christi, Texas.

The partnership, Aves Carbon Capture and Storage (Aves), will transport and store CO2 approximately one and a half miles underneath the seabed in the Gulf of Mexico. Located in the Coastal Bend industrial region, the project is near 35 million metric tons per year of existing industrial emissions. More than 20 million metric tons per year of greenfield project emissions are expected in the area by 2035.

Aves signed two leases with the Texas General Land Office for the Port Aransas North and Mustang Island tracts, which total more than 140,000 acres of subsurface pore space with a combined storage capacity of more than 600 million metric tons of CO2. When complete, the project will offer a carbon management solution that produces decarbonized commodities while providing significant economic and environmental benefits to local communities and the state of Texas.

Norton Rose Fulbright’s deal team was led by Becky Diffen, Luke Edney (Austin), Erin Mitchell and also included Mac Marshall (Houston), Bob Greenslade (Denver), Hilary Lefko (Washington, DC), Gabrielle Jacques (New York) and Lauren Thomas (Austin).