Reflections from the Carbon Storage MMV Technology Showcase at EAGE 2026

Snam offered a useful reminder that CCS is not starting from a blank page. Its onshore underground gas storage operations in Italy have been monitored for years using microseismic methods, InSAR, continuous GPS and permanent downhole gauges. This experience provides a valuable starting point. The refinement is that CO₂ storage asks something different of the same tools. Gas storage cycles injection against withdrawal, whereas CO₂ storage is injection-only and needs to demonstrate containment over very long timescales. The lesson is not to simply reuse established monitoring practice, but to adapt it thoughtfully for CO₂ storage.

Spirit Energy described monitoring-plan development as an iterative process, using a live screening tool to bring technologies in and out as their readiness matures. Monitoring plans cannot be static documents. They need to evolve as site understanding improves, risks change, technologies mature and operational experience builds.

The National Oceanography Centre presented seabed work, including the STEMM-CCS controlled release near Goldeneye, showing that chemical sensors can detect dissolved CO₂ signatures even without visible bubbles. Seawater pH and dissolved oxygen can vary strongly over seasonal cycles. Rather than treat that as a barrier, the NOC team showed how ratios such as CO₂ against oxygen, combined with detectability modelling and knowledge of near-seabed currents, can help separate genuine signals from natural variability. It was a good example of monitoring science becoming more sophisticated, not just more sensitive.  Looking ahead, the team pointed to the Project Greensand pilot in the Danish North Sea as their next major step, taking the same chemical-sensor approach onto a larger, more robust lander built for longer and more demanding seafloor deployments.

Confirming the source of a signal is the natural next step, and Tracerco gave a neat example. By tagging CO₂ at the point of injection and then detecting, sampling, verifying and reporting, tracer approaches can support clearer attribution of later measurements. This could matter greatly for the multi-emitter hubs now being planned, where several emitters may share a single store and source attribution becomes valuable commercially as well as technically.

Public confidence surfaced most visibly around induced seismicity, addressed by the University of Oxford and the NSTA through the COMPaSS project. The relevance was underlined by recent magnitude-four earthquakes near Edmonton in Canada, a reminder of why felt seismicity attracts public attention. The encouraging part was the response on show. The British Geological Survey already publishes seismic event data openly, and COMPaSS is designed to improve detection, location and attribution for UK offshore storage through better instrumentation, novel data integration and network-design modelling.

Several talks looked at cost. Offshore deployment can be expensive, with installation vessel day rates ranging from tens of thousands to around half a million dollars depending on the operation. That reality matters. If monitoring is to scale with the storage industry, it has to be robust enough to satisfy technical and regulatory needs, but practical enough to be deployed widely.

This was reflected in several different ways. SLB described model-driven, adaptive survey design aimed at reducing seismic source effort. Sentinel Subsea showed a passive system that activates only when triggered rather than acquiring continuously. CO₂Watch, a joint development by Aquaterra Energy and Baker Hughes, presented autonomous onshore monitoring stations for data collection and transmission across measurements such as soil gas, atmospheric monitoring, groundwater quality, geophones and microseismicity. The common thread was proportionality: designing monitoring around the storage concept, the site and its risk profile, so effort goes where it adds the most value.

Fibre-optic sensing rounded out the picture. Weatherford demonstrated discrete pressure and temperature monitoring in a CO₂ injection well, while Silixa presented distributed temperature, acoustic and strain sensing from the Poseidon and ADNOC X1 projects. These technologies are moving monitoring closer to continuous, high-resolution observation of well and reservoir behaviour. Their real value, however, lies in how the data are used to understand injection performance, temperature evolution, phase behaviour, plume movement and well integrity.

The overall impression from the day was positive. The technologies are capable and, in many cases, already proven in the field. The questions the community is now wrestling with, how to confirm attribution, how to maintain public trust, and how to monitor in proportion to risk, are exactly the questions a maturing sector should be tackling.

For CCS to scale, storage performance must be visible, explainable and trusted. On the evidence of this showcase, MMV is increasingly able to deliver all three.