7th Offshore CO2 Storage Workshop, Port Arthur, Texas

A highlight: – from concept to real storage leases, since the last workshop here in 2017, CO₂ storage has leapt forward in this Texas coastal region.

The 7^th International Workshop on Offshore Geological Storage, organised by the Gulf Coast Carbon Center and IEAGHG, was hosted by the Port Arthur Chamber of Commerce in the Lamar State College at Port Arthur on the 17-18 September. These workshops are on how-to-do offshore CCS. At this 7^th one, we had updates from some 45 projects around world, and had sessions to tackle key topics such as injecting into depleted fields, shipping and direct injection, public engagement, monitoring and environmental aspects, and regulatory developments. We also had two excellent interactive group exercises on re-use of depleted fields (thanks to Sue Hovorka) and evaluating legacy wells (thanks to Sue Hovorka, Amanda Ardill and Owain Tucker).

Hot news topic: We also used the expertise in the room to discuss the latest news relating to the ADM well news, where some CO₂ had migrated outside of the permitted storage reservoir via a corroded monitoring well, although still retained by further trapping formations at some 1,500 metres depth (so no risk to drinking water or environment). This has created some alarmist news headlines. Although this is an onshore example, the same conclusions reached by the group apply to offshore storage also, and that is to not place monitoring wells into the CO₂ plume, they can potentially provide migration pathways.

Key messages: The meeting drew conclusions and key messages which included:

• There is a great diversity of projects, at a variety of stages. With diverse business models, multiple sources, or country sources, single operator to multi-partner operations.  ‘Offshore CCS’ is not one thing, and there is much new action in Asia.
• Ship and barge transport (and other solutions) is being worked on intensively with a lot of different models for the vessels pressure temperature and handling.
• There is variable interest in use of depleted fields for storage (scale, maturity and others affecting countries’ priorities).
• A caution from the ADM incident – don’t put monitoring wells into the CO₂ plume. The promise of reward of data does not outweigh the risk of loss of containment.
• Containment and leakage – is of public interest and particularly what it is – in this regard knowledge is key.
• If you can safely increase storage pressure, you can increase storage capacity.
• Thought leadership on CO₂ stream composition aspects by EU stakeholders is active and critical for multi-source and multi-modal transport systems.
• We had overwhelmingly positive interest by the Port Arthur Chamber of Commerce, and local advertising of CCS in the local press, on billboards and spotify ads, all positive messages and good outreach. 

The meeting then agreed on some recommendations, some of these centred around the discussion over the ADM well and included the recommendation that the US look to the EU’s understanding of a storage complex and that permitting should sought for all overlying confining systems not just the immediate seal. As mentioned, it is not wise to locate a monitoring well in your plume, or perforate multiple geological layers. We had a discussion about how future meetings might handle the growing number of offshore projects to best represent them and share learnings. It was felt that lessons learned that are transferable are of value, and for projects that are closest to operation – it would be useful to learn how are the logistics coming together across the whole value chain. Additionally, what are projects doing in terms of community outreach and how is that being delivered and received. 

Lastly, public perception studies demonstrate that a high proportion of the population have very little knowledge of CCS but when given some background can generally warm to the concept – getting well balanced information to the public is key to addressing concerns.

Field trip: An excellent field trip was organised by Tip Meckel of the Gulf Coast Carbon Centre. This included the full CCS value chain, from CO₂ sources at the local refineries (including Air Products CO₂ capture facility), ExxonMobil’s Green Line CO₂ trunk pipeline, Baker Hughes well- and caprock-inspection tools, and the shore and offshore geology. Tip provided an interactive lesson in the regional geology which has created the numerous storage formations. Tip made a key point, we last held the Offshore Workshop here in 2017. Then geological storage in the area was just a concept promoted by Tip and colleagues, now seven years later there are many storage leases formally agreed both offshore and onshore, and numerous projects in development (and new LNG plants being built). What progress! “What starts here changes the world”, to quote the University of Texas slogan.

In addition, we considered regional ecosystem aspects and benefits with a talk by John DeFillipo of the National Wildlife Federation, including our work on demonstrating neutral impacts of CCS on avian populations, all very relevant with the large number of potential CCS projects and offshore wind projects in this migration hotspot.

Thanks: The venue at Lamar State College at Port Arthur, as well as training the future engineers and technicians for the energy and CCS projects, overlooks the Intercoastal Waterway, a major ship canal. Workshop attendees were treated to not just views of ships and barges with energy products regularly passing by, but also views of the local Bottlenosed Dolphins. Perhaps the first CCS meeting with dolphins!

Many thanks to the presenters and 60+ in-person attendees from over seven countries and the 100+ online attendees (from many more countries) for good presentations and discussions, and thanks to the sponsors US Department of Energy, Viridien, Baker Hughes, ExxonMobil and Carbon Ventures.

The presentations will be made available on Global Offshore Initiative | Gulf Coast Carbon Center (utexas.edu) and IEAGHG will publish a report of the workshop in due course.