Energy Transition Outlook 2019

The UK — a perfect fit for CCUS

The next phase of development in the UK requires projects to be delivered at sufficient scale to provide a platform for expansion to meet the type of figures referred to in the CCC report. Based on the work of the CCUS Advisory Group and Cost Challenge taskforce, it is now expected that CCUS “clusters” will be developed where carbon capture will take place across a range of activities. These may include capture of emissions from a combination of industrial processes, power generation, or the production of hydrogen for use in homes and businesses derived from natural gas. If all the five cluster projects are realised, this phase of development would allow for up to 30 million tonnes to be captured. 10

The UK has enormous potential as a location for the transport and storage of carbon dioxide, both for its own emissions and those from other countries. This has been underlined in a number of assessments identifying storage sites with many decades worth of storage at current emission levels.8 One recent study estimated 78GT (78,000 million tonnes) of potential storage in the UK.9 Just 15% of this potential capacity would last the UK around 100 years. The recent changes to the London Protocol will further allow for UK storage locations to be used for sequestering the emissions from other countries. The UK oil and gas industry is well equipped to help deliver CCUS through subsurface and process engineering expertise and experience of planning/executing major offshore infrastructure projects.

Developing transport and storage facilities

The capture projects will need to be served by transport and storage facilities, subject to some form of regulation. This would need sufficient pipeline and wells capacity in order to meet the requirements of the proposed cluster projects, and which provide access to sufficient storage in aquifers and salt caverns.

8 Carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) projects: re-use of oil and gas assets (BEIS, 2019) 9 Progressing Development of the UK’s Strategic Carbon Dioxide Storage Resource (Energy Technologies Institute, 2016) 10 Capture for growth: a roadmap for the world’s first zero carbon industrial cluster (Zero Carbon Humber, 2019)

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