Carbon capture and storage – the road to net zero
Dedicated NSTA development team created to oversee the delivery of carbon storage developments?·???????
The team supplements the NSTA’s established Exploration & New Ventures team and showscommitment to the energy transition, which is also reflected in the organisation’s name change???????
Comes as NSTA considers applications for first ever CCS licensing round?
The NSTA has responded to the rapid growth of the UK's carbon capture and storage (CCS) industry by setting up a dedicated carbon transportation and storage team.??
?The team will oversee the delivery of offshore carbon transportation and storage nergy Integration Project found that CCS is vital for meeting net zero targets. The
government has also set a target to capture 20-30 million tonnes of CO2 a year by 2030 for the UK to reach net zero by 2050.?
?Additionally, a successful CCS industry could support an estimated 50,000 jobs
and enable further low-carbon technologies, such as blue hydrogen – producing
hydrogen from natural gas whilst capturing and storing the CO2.?
?In March 2022, the North Sea Transition Authority took on its new name to underline the growing importance of the Energy Transition, alongside the continuing role of oil and gas.?
The UK’s first ever carbon storage licensing round was launched in June last year, offering 13 areas for which 26 bids were made. It is expected that licences will be offered for award in the coming weeks.?
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However, this round is expected to be the first of many, with estimates that up to 100 separate stores could be required for the UK to meet its domestic storage requirements.?
A new NSTA carbon storage development team, headed by Alistair Macfarlane,
has been established to steward the industry from the point of site characterisation to permit application and beyond as it develops and grows.?
The team, which includes experienced reservoir engineers and geoscientists, will work with operators on their development plans, execution of their work programs and, following commencement of CO2 injection, ensuring projects are operating as per the conditions of their storage permit.?
The existing Exploration & New Ventures Team will continue to handle the UK storage portfolio, execute licensing rounds, and steward industry exploration and appraisal work programmes from the point of licence award to the end of site characterisation.?
Alistair Macfarlane, NSTA Area Manager, said:?
“The importance of carbon capture and storage as part of the energy transition and helping the UK to meet net zero cannot be overestimated.?
“I am very excited to be heading this team and building a centre of excellence to deliver the regulatory role the NSTA has as efficiently and smoothly as possible to support this growing industry which can play a crucial role in supporting the move towards net zero and providing skilled jobs.”?
Jo Bagguley, NSTA Principal Regional Geologist, said:?
“The NSTA is progressing evaluations of applications in the UK’s ground-breaking first Carbon Storage Round at pace, and we hope to be in a position to make offers of award within weeks.?
“Pending award, many of these licences should result in substantial exploration and appraisal activity over the next several years, resulting in better characterisation of subsurface storage sites that can subsequently be passed into the development cycle.”?
Experienced Senior Consultant: Energy Asset Management, Major & Decommissioning Projects: Oil & Gas ● Nuclear ● Petrochemical
2 年The fact that no one has got carbon capture to work anywhere near the scale required seems to be bc a big missing from the aspirations. This along with other refusals of the ‘Authorities’ to face up to reality - like where are all the factories to build all the wind turbines going to come from? Just shows how hopeless things are.
? Programme / Project Director with extensive international experience in spearheading complex ￡billion Portfolios, Programmes and Projects within energy sectors ? APM | CHPP | RPP
2 年The focus sounds good and in the nicest possible way Alistair Macfarlane let’s hope you and team are kept very busy! It’s about time this snowball started accelerating and rolling by itself. Surely UK is uniquely set up to make this work?
Reserves Auditor: CO2 Storage: Geothermal: Infrastructure Reuse
2 年The NSTA team will need not only dedication, but also (in the words of a past national treasure, Cilla Black) “a lorra lorra luck” to ensure the delivery of carbon storage developments?in the UKCS. According to published forecasts by the two Majors tasked with delivering the higher ranked Phase 1 CCS projects (see table), they consider it very unlikely that the UK government’s target of storing 20-30 Mtpa_CO2 by 2030 will be met.? One can only hope that the NSTA’s estimate of "up to 100 separate stores" is not based on the overly optimistic and long-in-the-tooth "CO2Stored" database of BGS. Finally, the statement that awarding CCS licences “should result in substantial exploration and appraisal activity over the next several years” is a geologist’s wish rather than a contractual commitment. This is a pity as the identified UKCS saline aquifer storage sites need far more appraisal wells to be drilled, cored, logged and tested.?
(Semi Retired) Well's drilling and engineering, instructor, facilitator, advisor.
2 年So despite having drilled thousands of offshore wells. With uk Geologists geoscience obtaining hundreds of thousands of logs on non hydrocarbon and reservoir bearing formations. At an astronomic price. This industry does not have a scobbie to what is the best regional type of lithology structure ( that exist) to capture carbon. So the way we can read this, is that. Tax payers will be subsidizing and forking out millions to geologists to drill, how many further exploration / appraisal wells. It’s just rediculous? With money again in the hands of geologists ( not verifiable project managers) drilling for science Vs delivering tax payer project outcomes benefits and value warranted! So how is this all going to be better measured managed controlled by NSTA Because we know current oil and gas regs standards simply fall short of requiring any operator to measure wells project loss waste ie the majority of non injury well related operational ‘safety issues’ that exists. Where current ‘wells evident loss’ has always been over-shadowed by governments/operators profits to make all good. So what are NSTA going to be doing strategically different to project manage these wells. That will not profit the same. What will change?
Director, MPA Lime
2 年I hope that this team takes out unnecessary/redundant regs. or aligns levels of regs. so they don't confuse and conflict causing delays to innovation. Key deliverable is speed of delivery of CCUS to enable all the net zero and net negative ambitions and get on with restoring the atmosphere and reversing the climate change direction. #netnegativelime #decarbonisation #carboncapture Michael Conroy