Qatar's giant North Field East LNG liquefaction project is expected to capture and store 2.9Mt CO2 per year, the Gas Exporting Countries Forum said Wednesday.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) investments to reach $1.8bn in 2022, followed by a sharp increase over the next two years to reach $40bn by 2024.
The past few years have witnessed an escalation in the language of climate change and CCS projects are at the heart of it as part of a reliable decarbonisation pathway.
Since the start of 2018, momentum behind CCS has been growing which is translated into a significant rise in announced CCS projects and the associated carbon abatement capacity.
As of 2022, about 200 new carbon capture projects have been announced under different stages of development, with aggregated capturing capacity of around 240tonnes carbon dioxide per year.
This represents a 44% increase compared to the number of projects in 2021 and evidence of the increased interest in CCS as a pathway for achieving emissions reduction, while supporting at the same time economic growth and a just transition.
Currently, there are around 30 operational facilities applying CCS on commercial scale to industrial operations, power generation and fuel transformation.
On the other hand, there are CCS projects that are in different phases of developments, with 75 projects in early development phase, some 78 projects in advanced development phase and 11 projects under construction.
However, in 2022 only 19 commercial CCS projects under development have taken FID, including the FID for the development of Petronas’s Kasawari CCS project off the coast of Sarawak, Malaysia, which is considered the world largest offshore CCS project, with capturing capacity around 3.3mn tonnes CO2 per year.
Over 100 projects may be sanctioned in 2023, which would be considered a significant rise in the CCS portfolio.
On a regional basis, the major share of capturing capacity for operational CCS in 2022 belongs to the US with more than 50%, followed by Canada and Asia Pacific.
The CCS projects under development are distributed over 30 countries with some projects in different phases of progress.
According to the IEA’s Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage 2022 report, the US has about 80 projects that are under development through to 2030, with total capturing capacity of 100Mtpa. This would increase the US capacity in CCS five times.
Also in North America, Canada is working on enhancing its CCS deployment, with about 15 projects under development, the GECF said.