Exclusive: Drax Group signs Energy Corridor lease
By Jishnu Nair, Houston Business Journal
After selecting Houston as its North American base of operations for carbon capture, utilization and storage, the U.K.-based company Drax Group inked a lease in the Energy Corridor.
Drax’s new home will be at 757 North Eldridge Parkway. Company officials confirmed to the Houston Business Journal that the office will be over 8,100 square feet. Drax will begin with 30-40 Houston-based employees before ramping up to its eventual goal of 115 workers, the company said.
Raj Swaminathan, a senior vice president for Drax who is responsible for the company’s North American development, said that Houston attracted the company due to the amount of potential business partnerships with existing energy companies as well as the depth of the region’s talent pool.
Drax’s carbon capture works through a process known as Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage or BECCS, which captures and stores carbon dioxide produced by energy production from organic matter, including wooden pellets, specialized crops and residues from industries such as agriculture and forestry. Swaminathan said for a carbon capture plant’s need, Houston had the right blend of experience that could translate over from oil and gas and petrochemical work.
“When you look at a carbon capture facility, you have a power island, a fiber island, and the carbon capture process,” Swaminathan said. “On the power side, [Houston] has electrical, mechanical, civil engineering, et cetera. And then carbon capture is a chemical process at the end of the day — so a lot of knowledge used in the oil and petrochemical industry is there.”
Swaminathan said a few factors could explain the draw of working in renewables after a career in traditional energy.
“One of the things I’ve heard consistently from is a few people we’ve talked to who are transitioning from oil and gas is they see oil and gas as an economy is shrinking while renewables is growing, and they want to go where growth is,” he said. “Number two is that for them, it’s personal in terms of climate change happening. We all work for money, but we also want to work in something that we feel will make a positive difference in the world.”
Drax has identified two sites in the southern U.S. to deploy its BECCS project, and nine other sites are under further evaluation, the company said. Swaminathan could not confirm any site locations but said Texas sites were “on the map.”
The company will have a growing pool of clean tech talent to choose from, according to new research from the Greater Houston Partnership. The 2023 Houston Facts report estimated the Bayou City had 110,324 clean tech workers, including those in non-fossil fuel transmission and distribution categories. That number is the highest point the workforce has reached in a decade, the GHP found.
Houston’s Energy Corridor has been seeing both traditional and new energy companies shuffling offices recently, with engineering company Gulf Cos. signing a lease for two floors at Eldridge Oaks, a 14-story office tower at 1080 Eldridge Parkway in mid-July. Meanwhile, the decarbonization technology company Utility Global opened space at 15721 Park Row in May following its successful pilot test.
A recent report from Chicago-based JLL said the West Houston submarket was one of the hottest post-pandemic locations nationwide in terms of leasing activity, despite an overall market downturn for office space.
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