CCUS – Carrot, Stick vs Voluntary markets – is MENA Region ready?

According to the International Energy Agency, carbon capture, and sequestration (CCS) will play a critical role in the net-zero transition estimating that over one gigaton of CO2 per year will need to be captured by 2030, scaling up to over six gigatons by 2050. The carbon capture and storage (CCS) sector is poised for takeoff; however, permitting & regulatory, carbon sources, financing and subsurface risks are impacting the ability of CCS to scale rapidly. Today different actors from different backgrounds (oil and gas, industrial, manufacturing, biofuels, power generation, environmental NGOs, governmental) are collaborating, forming key partnerships and integrating different skill sets to enable projects, and minimize risk.

Successful CCS operations typically rely on a few key pillars: 1) a source of CO2 & infrastructure to transport, 2) a geological structure or chemical conversion process for storage, 3) mature, stable and visible regulatory & financial structures. Most of the projects that are in an advanced state of development have tried to find a ‘sweet spot’ of these three pillars, namely - an existing point source of high-concentration CO2 (ethanol, ammonia, concrete plants), a high-quality geological storage target in proximity to the point source, 3) a regulatory environment that puts a price on carbon in excess of the marginal storage cost, as well as having existing regulations on the handling and injection of gases into subsurface targets.

Please join us for this SPE panel discussion, which aims to hear from experts on global projects that have tried to target this ‘sweet spot’, what they looked for, the regulatory environment that drove the project, and the financial framework that allowed investment decisions. In addition, we will hear about new technologies that are advancing the CO2 point-source discussion like DAC and Blue Ammonia/Hydrogen which allow the point source to be located over the best geological targets and produce transportable, low-carbon fuels for hard to decarbonize industries.