3rd International Workshop on Offshore Geologic CO₂ Storage

Publication Overview

This workshop came about to address a recommendation from the CSLF on offshore CCS. This 3rd International Workshop on Offshore CCS took place on 3-4 May, organised by the Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG) in collaboration with IEAGHG and others, and hosted by the Research Council of Norway in Oslo, with support from SANEDI and CSLF.The aim of the workshop series is to facilitate sharing of knowledge and experiences among those who are doing offshore storage and those who are interested, and to facilitate international collaboration on projects. Over 60 attendees from 8 countries participated in this 3rd workshop.The agenda included: How to learn from learnings?; Value Chains for Offshore; Infrastructure re-use; Monitoring offshore CO₂ storage/EOR; Offshore CO₂ storage resource assessment; Project updates; Standards and Regulatory Frameworks; and Brainstorming towards an international collaborative project.

Publication Summary

• There is a new interest in the EU and Japan for value chains combining hydrogen production and CCS.
• 45Q tax credits may be significant to stimulate projects.

Infrastructure:

• Re-use of infrastructure is not necessarily easy. Reuse of pipelines is more likely than with platforms.
• More R&D on legacy wells is needed, specifically how to deal with the challenges presented by legacy wells. Different standards exist in time, region, and purpose.

Monitoring

• The benefits of permanent reservoir monitoring outweigh the extra cost, but coverage is inflexible with this method.
• Different monitoring methods should inform each other, including methods for determining trigger points. This type of complementary monitoring is crucial.
• Marine environment baselines – very complex but we are learning more.
• AUVs are proving successful for long term surveillance, both temporal and spatial, and for public assurance.
• The workflow is to find anomaly and then attribute its source.
• HR4D seismic can be used for characterisation of shallow leakage structures and for monitoring the plume during injection.
• Microseismic techniques require background data.

Resource assessment

• Don’t spend too much time on refining broad static assessments – leap from regional to more local assessments including dynamic capacities, and to well injectivity basis.
• Society of Petroleum Engineers are developing and releasing a Geologic Storage Resources Management System (SRMS) this year.
• Resource quantification will be more important as projects mature.

Projects

• Norway has plans for full-scale CCS.
• USA is developing robust offshore R&D programmes.
• Japan and Brazil have matured projects emerging.
• 4D seismic imaging is very encouraging at Tomakomai. First imaging of CO₂ at 60,000t at 1km depth.

Regulatory frameworks

• Regulations should adapt to learnings.
• ISO certification is useful for building trust in a project and useful for communication with different stakeholders.
• London Protocol: scope still needs clarifications. Projects can help test applicability. Not one-size-fits-all, but case by case assessment.
• Key message from Tomakomai: additional techniques needed.

Brainstorming Criteria for International Collaborative Project – (the what and the how, not the where)

• Objective is to share learning by doing from the real projects.
• Need roadmaps on where to find information on CCS
• Can we learn from the International Space Station or the International Ocean Discovery Program, for CCS.
• The ACT initiative could be used for projects, not just for R&D (ACT – Accelerating CCS Technologies, an EU ERA NET Cofund).
• Develop ACT to be the operationalisation of Mission Innovation
• Could Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) fund a real project?

Funding

• Some major international funders are keener on non-fossil fuel technologies.
• The value of CCS needs better and more advocacy to funders.
• Norwegian project is seeking international collaboration.
• Green Climate Fund will use Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as one of 6 criteria – CCS is lacking evidence-base for support in SDGs [note IEAGHG will be addressing this].

Key recommendations included:

• Explore models for international collaboration on projects.
• An ACT-type model is good for R&D (US is joining), so an ACT for projects is recommended.
• Consider how to build knowledge sharing from hands-on operational projects, including an international collaboration on a project.
• Provide a roadmap to existing information sources [IEAGHG will be addressing this].
• Joint funding between countries has started and should continue.
• Survey which developing countries would be attracted to offshore storage.
• Get developing country representatives to these meetings. Identify key persons and funding sources.
• More advocacy is needed to funders on CCS – future Nationally Determined Contributions will need CCS, so how can we make countries aware of their potential? The research community is ready to inform.
• Complimentary monitoring to be built into MVA plans – different monitoring methods informing each other, including methods for determining trigger points.