The carbon storage industry is getting a head start in safely operating carbon storage projects by drawing on knowledge gained from oil and gas operations.
The North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) in September issued a set of stewardship expectations to help carbon storage licensees meet obligations related to operating projects in a way that prevents leaks and safeguards the health of humans and the environment.
Alistair Macfarlane, NSTA’s head of carbon transportation storage team, told JPT the expectations for carbon capture and storage (CCS) are just that: expectations, not requirements.
“They’re not a regulatory tool. So, if you don’t do it, we’re not going to come after you, but there’ll be a conversation about, ‘Well, why don’t you think that's a good thing to do?’ ” he said.
While there are clear stewardship expectations when it comes to the oil and gas industry, the CCS industry is at a different stage of growth, he said.
In September 2023, 21 licenses were awarded to 14 companies in the UK’s inaugural carbon storage licensing round, and, in May, the UK asked the industry to nominate additional locations for licensing.
CO2 is expected to be stored in previously awarded licenses as early as 2027 or 2028 via the Teesside project by the Northern Endurance Partnership (NEP)—a joint venture of BP, Equinor, and TotalEnergies—and the Eni-led Hynet project in Liverpool Bay.
The main idea of the expectations, Macfarlane said, is to outline what good practices look like so CCS licensees can meet them.
“In something that’s new. Nobody likes a vacuum. They prefer to have some guidance and some guidelines and know what the thought process is of the regulator. That makes it much easier. They all want to comply with the rules. They all want to be efficient in what they submit to us and not have multiple attempts. So having the expectations out there helps with that,” he said.
Because CCS is essentially “a new industry,” the risk of not having clear expectations means licensees might go too far or they might do too little “and have a shock” when queried about certain aspects of a plan, he said.
“There’s nothing worse than not knowing what your regulator thinks,” he said.
And, he stressed, the five stewardship expectations should be viewed as a framework rather than a rigid list.
“They are there to help, not to create another burden,” he said.
The five areas covered by the expectations are risk assessment, appraisal and subsurface characterization, data acquisition and use for appraisal and monitoring, technology development and deployment, and stakeholder engagement.
They weren’t developed in a bubble but rather through a process that involved drawing from experience in the oil and gas industry, CCS frameworks used by other countries, and feedback and insights from subject matter experts.
The challenge is that CCS is not a high-margin business, so those involved “don’t want us layering in lots of extra stuff,” Macfarlane said.
For example, some of the feedback concerned the acceptable age of data that can be used. In the case of data acquisition for use in appraisal and monitoring, that data should not be more than 10 years old.
That is particularly relevant with depleted or older fields where a lot of production has occurred since seismic was last shot and with the fact that technology changes rapidly.
“It’s important to try to make sure you’ve got a good understanding of the subsurface and you’re using the best data for that understanding to minimize the risk of things going wrong,” Macfarlane said.
He repeated that the guidelines are the start of a conversation.
“We think that that’s good practice. You tell us why not. If you tell us that ‘actually the processing that we’ve done has got a good enough uplift and shooting new seismic is not going to improve the understanding of the subsurface,’ fine. My technical folks will hear that, evaluate that, take a decision on that,” he said.
He said he expects the guidelines to evolve as the CCS industry matures.
“We’re all learning. The industry is learning, and we as regulators are learning as well,” he said.
The NSTA has issued 13 stewardship expectations for the oil and gas industry, and three or four more CCS guidelines are expected in the couple of years, including one on commissioning.
“We’re trying to make them relevant for what’s going on just now and learnings that we are getting from the conversations that we’re having with the industry and the ongoing work that we’re doing with them,” he said. “Then, we’ll probably have a few more later once things are up and running and storage has taken place.”
What other industry might benefit from learnings in oil and gas and CCS?
“At some point in the future, if we get live hydrogen storage projects and operations, we’ll probably have a suite (of stewardship expectations) for that as well,” he said. “But that’s still a glint in our eyes at the moment.”
