Bridging Risk Management and Monitoring: Highlights from The Hague

Last week, IEAGHG brought together two of its longest-running expert networks – Risk Management and Monitoring – for a combined meeting at Shell’s campus in The Hague. Over two days (27–28 August 2025), over 70 experts from industry, academia, and regulatory bodies gathered to share the latest thinking, tools, and real-world experience on how to make CO₂ storage projects as safe, reliable and cost-effective as possible.

The sessions covered a wide mix of topics, but a few big themes stood out:

• Keeping storage sites safe – from site selection through to long-term stewardship.
• Pressure risks underground – understanding how CO₂ injection changes subsurface dynamics and regulatory implications.
• Old wells and new challenges – improving how we detect and manage risks posed by legacy wells.
• Wells done right – best practice in design and operations to reduce problems before they arise.
• Faults and geology – taking a closer look at how to assess risks linked to subsurface faults.
• Risk over time – how risks evolve (and hopefully reduce) as projects mature.
• Smarter monitoring – showcasing new techniques, from fibre optics to cutting-edge geophysics.
• The money side – a lively panel on what insurance and finance need and from the risk and monitoring expertise.

These conversations weren’t just theoretical – many presentations drew directly on lessons from operating projects, giving the room a real sense of “what works and what still needs work.”

Some key conclusions and recommendations that arose from the discussions included:

• Care in well abandonment is important, with CCS considerations kept in mind for both onshore and offshore settings.
• It is very difficult for CO₂ to reach the surface via a fault.
• Many techniques are available for managing corrosion in wells.
• Machine learning is proving very useful, offering more true detections of seismicity, fewer false detections, and real-time analysis; however, while useful, it is still a work in progress.
• The concept of “baseline” is better expressed as a characterisation step rather than baseline terminology, with shallow conditions being more variable and deeper conditions more stable.
• Monitoring, measurement and verification plans can evolve as operational knowledge of the project develops.
• Project value chains can involve different actors, who need to align on several aspects, including health and safety as well as risk tolerance.
• Pressure interference will be an inevitable challenge, and unitisation and allocation can help manage this risk, supported by pressure monitoring when multiple actors operate in close proximity.
• Formalised communication routes should be established for data sharing with stakeholders.
• MMV plans and risk management plans should evolve as operational knowledge of the project develops.
• Local stakeholders should be engaged early, with preparedness for any potential negative responses.
• There needs to be a dialogue between the insurance and technical communities on what constitutes leakage, as definitions vary globally, and more precision is needed on whose definition is being used.
• CCS is increasingly recognised as the most permanent method of storing CO₂, with this realisation continuing to broaden.

Of course, no IEAGHG network meeting is complete without some time to connect. Shell and EBN co-sponsored a memorable dinner at the beautiful Mauritshuis museum, where attendees could continue discussions surrounded by Dutch masterpieces.

And while the main meeting concluded on the 28^th, there was an excursion to Rotterdam Harbour to view the onshore and offshore facets of the Porthos CCS project (https://www.porthosco2.nl/en/project/) the following day – an exciting chance to see large-scale CCS infrastructure in construction. We were grateful to Willem-Jan Plug, who acted as our expert tour guide.

Bringing the IEAGHG Risk Management and Monitoring networks together created some powerful crossovers. Monitoring technologies can directly feed into better risk assessment, and risk frameworks help prioritise where monitoring really matters. The conversations in The Hague showed just how interconnected these two areas are – and how much we gain when we tackle them side by side. As always, IEAGHG will capture the key takeaways in a meeting report, ensuring the discussions contribute to the wider CCS community. For those who were there, the big takeaway was clear: collaboration between disciplines is the best way to progress CO₂ storage