Fund to Build Emissions-Reduction Systems

Blue Source (www.ghgworks.com), a U.S. aggregator of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission-reduction offsets, and First Reserve Corporation (www.frcorp.com), a private equity investor in the energy industry, announced an initiative to fund the development of infrastructure projects that help reduce GHG emissions in the United States.

The commitment, backed by equity from First Reserve Fund X, LP, together with expected project debt, will target investment opportunities of up to $500 million in value. This is the first investment commitment in the United States that will focus on projects that develop emission reductions in the energy, transportation, and manufacturing sectors.

Potential investments include projects that capture and sequester carbon dioxide emissions from the flue stack in power generation, advanced energy conservation, methane capture from coal mines and agriculture, and the efficient handling and distribution of natural gas.

The commitment will be funded by First Reserve, which recently acquired a 50 percent interest in Blue Source.

To lead this infrastructure effort Blue Source hired Russell Martin as executive vice president. Mr. Martin joins Blue Source from Kinder Morgan, where he was a vice president of business development of a similar CO2 infrastructure business unit. Before that, Mr. Martin worked at Shell Oil Company as a manager of the company’s CO2 marketing team and helped form Shell CO2, which produced, marketed, and transported CO2 for enhanced oil recovery projects in the western United States.

Blue Source will be actively seeking opportunities to invest in developments or acquisitions of infrastructure that physically reduce greenhouse gases and effectively transport the GHGs to a use other than venting into the atmosphere.