As interest in carbon capture, utilization and storage grows in the Houston area, Houston-based Advantek Waste Management Services launched a new company to capitalize.
Called Vaulted Deep, the standalone company targets carbon removal in biomass, specifically in waste. The company is seeded with $8 million in funding from New York-based Lowercarbon Capital, Advantek said in a Sept. 7 announcement. A company spokesperson confirmed that while Vaulted Deep has its own staff, it is currently co-located with Advantek at 11000 Richmond Ave.
Vaulted Deep told Houston Inno that it already has two permitted injection sites in Kansas and California for storing the carbon it removes. The company could not disclose where additional sites might be opened in the future. Vaulted Deep launched with pre-purchases facilitated by Frontier, which is an advance market commitment for carbon removal founded by Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify, Meta, McKinsey and other businesses.
The organic wastes that Vaulted is targeting include biosolids, agricultural and livestock waste, and paper sludge. These wastes are usually dumped into a landfill or waterway or left to decompose on land, all of which lead to pollution of the air or water. Vaulted uses Advantek’s patented deep well slurry injection technology, which was previously designed for legacy waste deposits from oil and gas infrastructure, to store carbon removed from waste products.
Vaulted priced its carbon-removal offerings at $300 per ton and expected prices to drop in the future. The U.S. Department of Energy has identified a price point of $100 per ton as necessary to achieve a carbon-negative impact.
Vaulted Deep is led by Julia Reichelstein as CEO. Reichelstein is a former investor at San Francisco-based climate tech venture capital fund Piva Capital. Additionally, Advantek CEO Omar Abou-Sayed will transition to chairman of Advantek and will also serve as executive chairman of Vaulted.
In a statement to Houston Inno, Advantek confirmed that Colin Stevenson, formerly CFO and COO at the company, will replace Abou-Sayed as CEO.
Both major players in the energy industry and startups have been investing in carbon capture technology in Houston. Houston-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: OXY) recently announced a deal to acquire a partner company, Carbon Engineering Ltd., for $1.1 billion. The Canada-based company was responsible for the development of its direct air capture hubs in Kleberg County and the Permian Basin.
Other recent carbon capture acquisitions in the Houston area involve Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM), which bought Denbury Inc. (NYSE: DEN) for $4.9 billion to boost its Exxon Low Carbon Solutions business arm. The deal followed Exxon officially relocating its headquarters from Irving, Texas, to its 385-acre campus at City Place, the master-planned community formerly known as Springwoods Village.
Also changing hands is a stake in the Bayou Bend carbon capture and sequestration project on the Gulf Coast. In August, Denver-based Carbonvert sold all of its 25% stake in the project to Norway-based Equinor ASA (NYSE: EQNR). Houston-based Talos Energy Inc. (NYSE: TALO) and California-based Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX), which has a major presence in Houston, are the other two companies in the Bayou Bend CCS LLC joint venture.
Other carbon-tech companies in Houston that are exploring applications related to biomass include U.K.-based Drax Group, which signed a headquarters lease in the Energy Corridor in July. Drax chose Houston as the base for its North American carbon operations due to the talent pool present in the area.
Meanwhile, Houston-based startup Cemvita launched its first pilot plant earlier in 2023. Cemvita uses microbe engineering to convert carbon dioxide into a soybean oil alternative for use in heavy industry and aviation fuel.
