BHP CCUS Partners Discussions

I participated in the BHP CCUS Partners Discussions workshop the day after GHGT-14. This brought together around 50 senior thought-leaders and experts in CCUS to brainstorm on BHP’s future vision and objectives. Scene-setting talks were provided. A global update was given by Brad Page and Alex Zapantis of GCCSI. The workshop heard about a supportive narrative for CCUS from Gabrielle Walker and Fiona Wild of BHP, on CCUS roadmaps for China, the project costs of CCUS from Mike Monea and Corwyn Bruce of the International CCS Knowledge Centre, and what is left to do on storage by Peter Cook, David Byers of CO₂CRC, and by Katherine Romanak of the University of Texas Gulf Coast Carbon Centre who covered GCCC’s new 5 year plan which took the workshop beyond current storage challenges.

The workshop broke into groups to discuss what they had heard and to suggest options for BHP going forward in order to drive innovation and progress deployment of CCUS. My group had a series of recommendations based upon new demonstration projects, associated knowledge centres, and associated summer schools. More specifically for an iron and steel based demonstration in China (related to BHP’s current interests there), and an even more interesting idea by Franciso Ascui of Edinburgh University for a demonstration project of fossil-free steel production in Northern Australia using hydrogen fromoffshore natural gas to replace carbon in the steel production, and storing the CO₂ back in the offshore depleted gas fields and also exporting the hydrogen.

An interesting day of brainstorming and some new ideas, thank you BHP.