Insights and Commentaries

Insights and Commentaries

The Global CCS Institute releases the first Global Storage Portfolio

16th March 2016

Topic(s): Carbon capture, CO2 storage, use and storage (CCUS)

The Global CCS Institute has published a new report summarising regional storage resource assessments around the world. The Global Storage Portfolio is designed as a regularly-updated reference containing the latest assessments of geological storage in key regions around the world. In this Insight the report's author, Senior Adviser for Storage — Asia Pacific, Dr Chris Consoli, discusses the Portfolio and its areas of focus.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) can contribute up to 13% of the cumulative CO2 emissions reduction through to 2050 if we are to limit the rise in global temperature to 2 degrees celsius at least cost, according to the International Energy Agency. This equates to around 95 gigatonnes (Gt) of permanent geological storage of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2). This raises the question: is there sufficient storage space available to support the industrial-scale deployment of CCS required to achieve CO2 mitigation targets over the coming decades?

To help answer this question the Global CCS Institute has released the first edition of its Global Storage Portfolio. The Portfolio summarises the storage resource potential of nations which have published regional assessments, giving the most accurate and up-to-date estimate for the storage potential of prospective regions. This is not a proxy for total global storage potential however, as each country assessment uses different methods to estimate storage potential. It is also important to note that regional resource assessments are not a substitute for the detailed site-scale appraisals of storage capacity required to support financial investment decisions for projects. Currently data from almost 50 countries has been surmised and this number will continue to grow as more regional assessments are completed.

Quantifying storage capacity

Accurate estimates of a region’s storage capacity are a challenge because each geological storage assessment will be inherently different. Regional assessments that estimate storage potential over wide geographical areas, for example national surveys, are the first step to answering this challenge. These assessments typically focus on the technical aspects of storage and can provide valuable information to policy makers, regulators and industry on the distribution and scale of the storage potential to support CCS deployment. The main outcomes from regional assessments are an estimation of the storage resource, which is the potential storage space that could be utilised, subject to engineering, economic and regulatory factors.

The Global Storage Portfolio

The primary purpose of the Institute’s Global Storage Portfolio is to collate and summarise published regional assessments across the world. The Portfolio also summarises key data on a nation’s readiness to host a commercial, large-scale CCS project. For this reason, only proven storage scenarios, including deep saline formations, depleted/depleting oil and gas fields and enhanced oil recovery using CO2, are considered in the Portfolio. The analysis has found that:

  • Substantial storage resources are present in most key regions of the world.
  • Reliable methodologies to determine and classify regional storage resources are available and have been widely applied, although there is no formally recognised international standard.
  • The level of resource assessment undertaken and the availability of characterisation data is highly variable across regions.
  • The level of detail a regional resource assessment has progressed as well as the policy, legal and regulatory frameworks are key criteria that can be used to gauge the readiness of any given nation to deploy a CCS project.

The storage resources are grouped into five regions, Asia-Pacific (14 countries), Americas (five countries), Middle East (three countries), Europe and Russia (EU plus three countries) and Africa (four countries). A summary of key results are detailed in Table 1.

Table 1 Resource Assessment Status. The table shows the level of detail each country has achieved in the assessment status column. A full rating means all or a large proportion of prospective basins have been assessed in that country. Limited assessment status means a few basins have been assessed in detail, or assessment was only a high level overview. The resource level column refers to a CO2 storage resource-specific calculation categorisation. A theoretical resource level is the maximum amount of CO2 a geological unit(s) could permanently store, whilst the effective category is a subset of the theoretical resource constrained by physical and chemical properties specific to that geological unit.

Note: Each resource value was developed independently and should not be compared or collated to represent storage resource globally.

Based on the above findings, it is important to state that each resource value should not be compared or collated to represent storage resource globally. This is largely because in each assessment the geological parameters, calculation method, quality of data and level of detail is different. Note also that regional storage resource does not equate to proven storage capacity, which can only be obtained through detailed site-scale appraisal and include engineering, economic, legal and regulatory factors. Each of these factors affect the final amount of CO2 able to be injected and stored. Also, as research and storage exploration continues over time, the suitability of basins for storage will evolve along with the storage resources.Note: Each resource value was developed independently and should not be compared or collated to represent storage resource globally.

The Global Storage Portfolio is exclusive to members of the Global CCS Institute. The portfolio will enable the reader to rapidly establish a snapshot of a country’s storage resource and potential to deploy a large-scale project. Finally, the details within the portfolio are accurate as of the published date and reflect the current publically available sources of information. It is designed to be updated periodically and we encourage the CCS community to contact the Institute with further information to keep the portfolio a current document for the Institute's CCS community.

 
 
 

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