The Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF) meetings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, were held from 1-4 November and concluded with the 6th CSLF Ministerial Conference. The CSLF is a government-to-government agreement on developing CCS, it started in 2003 and now has 24 member countries and the European Commission, and consists of a Technical Group, a Policy Group, and Ministerial meetings.

The Ministers and other heads-of-delegation agreed a Ministerial Communique “Moving Beyond the First Wave of CCS Demonstrations”. This agreed key actions to progress CCS as follows:

• Advocating for clean energy policies to support CCS alongside other clean energy technologies, noting that the role of CCS is recognized in the UNFCCC.
• Foster international collaboration advancing technology development and deployment, building on CSLF initiatives.
• Importance of coordinated global R&D&D on 2nd and 3rd generation technologies…..including support and collaboration with IEA and IEAGHG.
• Create opportunities for private sector investment in ‘sweet spots’ for CCS.
• Supporting CCS-supporting policy frameworks.
• Supporting industrial CCS applications.
• Encourage storage exploration and transport infrastructure to de-risk projects.
• Explore potential for CO2 utlisation.

The Communique recognised the need for the London Protocol CCS export amendment ratification. It also tasked the CSLF to establish a global CCS project network, to collaborate on R&D on CCS with freshwater co-production, encourage work to recognise and credit BioCCS and CO2-EOR, and undertake outreach to academic community. The chairmanship of the CO2 Capture International Test Center Network will move from Norway to the USA, and the CSLF announced the formation of a Large-Scale Saline Storage Project Network to share knoweldge and exepriences. Two new members joined CSLF, Romania and Serbia.

The CSLF Policy Group endorsed five new projects as recommended by the Technical Group: Dry solid sorbent CO2 capture project in Korea; CO2 Capture Project Phase 4; the CO2CRC Otway Stage 2; Oxy-combustion of Oil Heavy Residues in Saudi Arabia and USA; and a CCU Network in Saudi Arabia. The CSLF Technical Group also started three new Task Forces on Offshore CO2-EOR, on BioCCS and on Improved Pore Space Utilization. IEAGHG’s work will be relevant to all of these.

A substantial contribution to the Technical Group was a report from the Offshore Task Force on the potential and challenges of sub-seabed CO2 storage. Throughout the CSLF Technical Group, the Policy Group and the Ministerial, offshore CCS was raised in terms of the encouragement of international knowledge sharing. This will be followed-up by a planned workshop at the University of Texas BEG in 2016.

IEAGHG participates directly in the CSLF through an agreement with the CSLF Technical Group, and contributes in its Task Forces such as the Offshore Task Force, and in support of the International Energy Agency in the Policy Group.

This was the best attended CSLF Ministerial that I have seen, with ten Ministers plus several Deputy-Ministers, representation from the UN’s Secretary-General, and plenty of media coverage as a result. Compliments to the hosts, the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for a very impressive set of CSLF meetings. Details of the Communique and other meeting documents and reports can be found at http://www.cslforum.net/ .