Planetary secures $43M offtake to prove ocean alkalinity at scale

What happened: Planetary closed a $43.3 million offtake deal with Frontier to remove 115,211 tonnes of CO2 using its ocean-based carbon removal.

The details: It’s the first coastal carbon removal deal for Frontier, the carbon removal buyers’ club backed by Shopify, Meta and other tech giants, and the largest ever for ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE).

Planetary removes atmospheric CO2 using ocean alkalinity enhancement, supercharging the ocean’s natural carbon cycle. The process adds alkaline minerals like calcium oxide and magnesium oxide to coastal waters, breaking down dissolved CO2 and locking it into stable carbonate minerals. This process mimics natural ocean chemistry - but at a faster pace.

Why it matters: OAE could store captured carbon for more than 10,000 years, providing a permanent removal pathway. It also offers the potential to scale while reversing ocean acidification - a rare co-benefit.

At $270 USD per tonne, removals remain expensive compared to other pathways. But Frontier sees a plausible path to $50-160 per tonne of removals for OAE as infrastructure and supply chains mature.

Frontier also highlighted Planetary’s focus on safety and monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) as a major reason why they’re the right team to deliver the first ocean-based removals at this scale.

Frontier’s purchase is a powerful signal to the market. The group is an influential buyer in carbon removal, shaping which technologies gain traction. The deal effectively anoints ocean alkalinity enhancement - and Planetary - as a serious contender to scale.

What’s next:

With fresh momentum from an XPrize win, delivering the world’s first OAE removals, and a $15.8M Series A last fall, Planetary now shifts from pilots to scaling up - and showing they can deliver removals responsibly.

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