ANALYSIS: Carbon dioxide removals deals totalling more than 23 million tCO2e struck in 2024

30 Jan 2025

Quantum Commodity Intelligence - Advanced commitments for carbon dioxide removals (CDR) credits were about 3.9 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e) between September 1 and the end of last year, bringing the total for 2024 to more than 23 million tCO2e, according to analysis by Quantum of announced deals. CDR offtake deals in the last four months of the year were 3,848,854 tCO2e, with the total figure higher as several agreements did not announce volumes.

Facebook parent company Meta topped the purchases, making a 1.3 million CDR deal with US-based forestry asset manager BTG Pactual Timberland Investment Group (TIG) - a subsidiary of Brazilian investment bank BTG Pactual. The deal also includes options for an additional 2.6 million CDRs through 2038 sourced from TIG's Latin American nature restoration strategy.

Carbon finance firm Respira International signed a deal with Mexican project developer Toroto and the Conhuás ejido community to buy over 1 million carbon credits from a forest restoration initiative in south-eastern Mexico. Respira will purchase all credits issued by the Conhuás project for five years from late 2024, with the option to extend for an additional two years, according to the agreement.

The project, certified by the US-based Climate Action Reserve (CAR) under CAR's Mexico Forest Protocol, is expected to issue around 300,000 CDR credits a year. Respira will guarantee a floor price for each credit, as well as a profit share agreement.

CDR buyers' coalition Frontier, of which Meta is a member, secured offtakes over various timeframes totalling 448,820 tCO2e in the four months to December 31, 2024. This includes a $48 million deal for 224,500 tCO2 ($213.8/tCO2) with CO280, which deploys its carbon capture technology to the boiler stack of existing paper mills to capture the CO2 and store it.

Frontier spent a record $279 million on CDR credits in 2024 through seven offtake agreements totalling 1,455,391 tCO2e, buoyed by one deal with Swedish utility Stockholm Exergi for 800,000 tCOe from the company's future bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) facility.

Microsoft

New buying by tech giant Microsoft in the period totalled 286,734 tCO2e, although one of the agreements with ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) project developer Ebb Carbon for an initial delivery of 1,333 CDR credits includes an option for a further 350,000 over 10 years. For the year as a whole, however, Microsoft was the dominant buyer in 2024, inking offtake agreements for more than 17.5 million CDRs over various delivery time frames. This is more than the 17 million tracked by Quantum last year for all other CDR deals.

Another tech company, Google, was also a significant buyer in the last four months of 2024. It agreed three deals totalling 350,000 tCO2e, including a 200,000 tCO2e offtake with Terradot for CDRs from the latter's enhanced rock weathering (ERW) projects in Brazil starting in 2029.

A further 100,000 CDRs has been pre-purchased by Google from direct air capture and storage project developer Holocene at $100/tCO2e. Through the deal, Holocene will capture and store 100,000 tCO2 by the early 2030s and further accelerate the development of its technology.

Two European energy companies signed a CDR deal in September that will see 330,000 CDR credits change hands over a 10-year period. Denmark-based Orsted will sell Norwegian firm Equinor the credits, which will come from the Kalundborg CO2 Hub from 2026.

"The sale of CDR credits contributes to the realisation of the 'Orsted Kalundborg CO2 Hub', as biomass-based carbon capture and storage is still at an early stage of development and associated with high costs," the company said in a statement at the time.

Equinor will use the CDRs to help meet its goals to reduce net Scope 1 (direct) and 2 (indirect from electricity use) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50% by the end of 2030 compared with 2015 levels. Up to 10% of Equinor's target will come from CDRs, with at least 90% coming from absolute GHG reductions.

Orsted is becoming a significant supplier of CDRs with Microsoft having agreed in May to take 1 million CDRs starting in 2026 generated by the straw-fired Avedore power station, which is part of the Kalundborg CO2 Hub.