At a giant cement plant on the Gulf of Oman, five tonnes of CO₂ a day are being steered away from the atmosphere and into the ground. On its own, that number barely registers in a sector that emits more than a billion tonnes of CO₂ each year. But the way it is being done – by turning flue gas into stone inside a nearby mountain – points to where one corner of heavy industry might be headed.
A small pipe into a very big problem
On 9 December 2025, Holcim and Omani carbon-removal start-up 44.01 announced what they describe as the world’s first pilot project to mineralise CO₂ captured at a cement plant.
