Andy has over 30 years’ experience in the field of safety and risk assessment and has worked in a number of industries, including oil and gas, renewables, nuclear and defence, transport, mining, manufacturing and chemical sectors. Over the past 25 years, Andy’s work has been predominately in the oil and gas and renewables industries, managing projects for facilities including refineries, gas plants, drilling rigs, offshore wind and logistics operations. 

His expertise includes both qualitative techniques such as bowties and hazard identification  as well as quantitative techniques such as fault and event tree analysis. Recently Andy has been assisting a number CCS projects such as Goldeneye, Northern Lights and Net Zero Teesside to better understand their risks by adapting established techniques used in other industries.

Negative emission technologies such as geological storage of CO2 are recognized as a crucial element to reach Net Zero Emissions. Assuring containment integrity is an essential requirement to ensure that sequestration of CO2 in geological storage sites is a safe and effective negative emissions solution. For the sequestration sites that are currently in operation, containment integrity is in part assured by avoiding sites where faults have been detected in the caprock, as these faults may under certain conditions act as conduits for fluid flow from the storage reservoir into the overburden and potentially to the surface or seabed. Through a multiscale, multidisciplinary research program, we aim to improve our quantitative understanding of the leakage potential of caprock faults in different rock types and structural settings, to assess under which conditions storage sites with limited faulting may still be suitable for CO2 sequestration. Within this program, experiments of fractured rock at the lab scale are compared to in-situ fault injection experiments to define scaling relations for hydromechanical and geochemical fault behavior. Constitutive relations derived from these experiments are embedded into multiscale simulation models of storage sites, to allow semi-quantitative screening of leakage risks for prospective storage sites. 

The United Kingdom flourished as a nation in the 18^th century and by the turn of the 20^th century had built an empire on which it was said, ‘the sun never sets’.  Although by the mid-20^th century the empire and global influence had declined it still was able in the second half of the 20^th century, punch way above its weight and play amongst the economic elite of the G7 and be a member of other exclusive ’clubs’.  Abridged histories of nations speak of leaders, power and influence; rarely do they touch on natural resources but it was one natural resource, ‘carbon’ that provided the energy for the nation and its ambitions.  First coal, then natural gas and oil consumption lifted the UK out of abject poverty as it has done elsewhere in the world and by the end of the 20^th century our dependency was complete. Our lives were powered, moved and warmed by fossil fuels.  The first energy peak was delivered at around 1911 when 300 million tons of coal was mined, burning of which put about the same carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as did Saudi Arabia from its oil a century later. Massive development of the UK’s offshore oil and gas resources delivered a second energy peak in the 1990’s, the UK hitting the top 10 of petroleum producers around the world.  The economic miracle attributed to Thatcherism in the 1980s might better have been termed ‘petroleumism’ for it was the discovery and production of both oil and gas which fuelled the UK’s economic revival.  The UK was not alone of course in developing its natural resources of fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas, the burning of which around the globe has raised the CO₂ levels in the atmosphere from around 280 ppm to 415 ppm today.  The near 50% rise in CO₂ concentration is already driving climate change.

Petroleum reservoir engineer, holds a PhD from TU Istanbul, Turkey, did a postdoc at Clausthal TU, Germany as Alexander von Humboldt fellow, both on CO2 as miscible and immiscible EOR. Experience in industry and academics; worked as researcher at TU Istanbul and Clausthal for projects on geothermal, experimental and numerical simulation of EOR methods, geological CO2 storage, modelling hydrate and tight gas reservoirs; led reservoir simulation team for radioactive waste repository at GRS, Germany. Since Dec 2010 at Wintershall Dea; for one year supporting Carbon Management and Hydrogen Team. PMI.

The types of geological structures suitable for CO2 storage were discussed and elaborated in full detail in the past years. The main grouping is made with respect to storage in saline aquifers (SA) and depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs (DHR). It is well-known that a direct comparison is often somewhat misleading; the preferences are depending on many factors among them availability, logistic and economic concerns. However, a juxtaposition of advantages and disadvantages in terms of various engineering aspects is often stated in related studies.

We wrap up the state-of-the-art of knowledge on the use of SA and DHR. Physical processes involved, analytical and numerical approaches for capacity and injectivity estimations, containment, wellbore and near-wellbore challenges and logistic options are discussed for both options. Comparisons are made considering the components of engineering designs for the onshore and offshore cases also by discussing the preliminary economics. By this review it is intended to provide the related industry and research a quick overview regarding the subject. Furthermore, knowledge gaps and potential risks in conjunction with both options of geological storage of CO2 will be thematized.

For any geological CO2 storage, it is imperative to evaluate the reservoir, seal, and overburden viability to avoid storage-related problems or subsequent leakage risks. This study carries out a geological and geophysical evaluation to characterize the Smeaheia area for the CO2 storage suitability. The experimental geomechanical behavior of shale caprock demonstrates the seal effectiveness in the Smeaheia area, which is an essential part of geological CO2 sequestration. The brittle and soft mineral fractions varied significantly within the caprock formations which leading to different brittleness values within the studied wells. Petrophysical analysis and rock physics diagnostics suggest that the reservoir sandstone is uncemented and has good to excellent reservoir quality. The two carbonate stringers are present in Zone-3 interpreted as extremely high resistivity, high density, high Vp and low porosity/permeability units which could be flow barriers based on their lateral extent. Seismic attribute analyses at various levels (from the top reservoir to the seafloor) from a 3D seismic survey covering the area facilitate to identify various fault systems and surface features. The geological and geophysical properties derived from the seismic attributes, well logs and laboratory measurements of cores help to calibrate 3D geomechanical model building in the area.

It is recognized that there are a number of existing CCS projects and trials of varying scale and size taking place globally, and it has been accepted that CCS projects are technically possible, and potentially a contributory solution to global CO2 reductions. However the economics surrounding many of the technologies that are not related to the recovery of hydrocarbons, or the stripping of gases from produced fluids are not always well defined, these change by geography, the level of government support, the polluting asset owners ESG policy and importantly by the level of residual liability associated with future carbon capture and storage projects.

Additionally the energy industry is enduring a period of intense disruption, oil price, climate change, energy transition demands, methane and carbon dioxide emission focus, increased market competition, often brutal supply chain behavior  and Covid 19 all contribute to unsettling investor appetite for a technology that has limited commercially successful applications beyond CCS to EOR. There are utilization applications that are emerging with potential commerciality like for instance in the cement industry that are likely to be commercial.  With these few exceptions, most individuals and organisations recognize that emission reductions are an increasingly important global necessity, however financial investors who manage your pension funds and investments are also looking for the returns required by you - their stakeholders.

The focus on climate has led to a flight of capital from traditional energy projects, with investors reducing exposure to projects associated with hydrocarbons and now often favoring lower energy usage industrial investments over high energy ones. This has meant that previously accessible sources of capital are no longer available to traditional industrial sectors. Additionally we are now beginning to see some of the remaining funders looking to link the cost of capital to the borrowers reduction in scope 1 and 2 emissions, with low carbon equivalent emitters financially benefiting from their lower operational emissions, as well as actually being able to find appropriate capital.

Most funders are also looking for projects where they can invest reasonably large amounts of funds, as the time taken to assess, review and commit to an investment can be considerable. It is within this challenging environment that CCS projects are looking for finance, investors – governmental or private have a responsibility to their investors to compare and contrast projects, and support those providing acceptable returns while meeting ESG objectives. In this workshop we will discuss what an investor wants to see in a project and why, how a project could be presented, the types of investors that could be targeted, the objectives of the particular carbon capture project, whether it be storage, sequestration or the industrial use of the captured gases.

Depleted gas reservoirs represent a great opportunity for underground storing of carbon dioxide. They indeed provide significance storage capacity accompanied by deep reservoir knowledge and infrastructures availability. In the framework of decarbonisation, Eni has adopted a robust workflow allowing for identification of CCS opportunities among its depleted assets portfolio. Starting from a first storage capacity estimate, the most promising opportunities are then deepened through labs, numerical modeling and special studies. 

In this presentation we will show the steps that lead Eni to identify and mature CCS opportunities. 

The Norwegian Northern Lights project's plan is to capture and transport CO2 from onshore sources and permanently store it in an offshore geological site at an industrial scale, thus providing a full CCS value-chain. Several storage concepts and locations were screened in order to select the suitable subsurface storage site, taking into consideration several parameters such as storage volumes, containment risk and costs profile. This contribution illustrates the evaluation and screening process that led to the selection of the Aurora storage site (unpenetrated, dipping saline aquifer) among the alternatives Smehaeia (structural closure with well penetration) and Heimdal (depleted fields), the crucial parameters addressed and workflow used.

The CO2 Storage Resource Management System (SRMS), delivered by the SPE in 2017, provides transparency on CO2 storage resource assessments through a two axis classification system including maturity and magnitude of the resource.

Some major challenges remain on the incorporation of volumetric-based CO2 storage resources of saline aquifers into the SRMS.

Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) is one of the key technologies for decarbonizing not only fossil fuels and the power sector but to reduce CO2 emissions from the industrial sector, in particular from the cement, steel and chemical industry. Global investments in clean energy and efficiency have stayed flat at around 600 USD billion since 2015 with most investments directed to the renewable and efficiency sector. Green focused financing has become important in corporate financing with green loans aimed at advancing environmental targets to meet the climate change targets. As an example, global green bond issuance reached a record high of more than $260 billion in 2020 with investment directed to projects that meet the Green Loan Principles (GLP). Despite the sustained growth of CCUS projects since 2017 the amount of investment in CCUS projects is still a small percentage of global clean energy investments and not enough to deliver the amount of CCUS projects required to meet the climate change targets. 

Understanding the ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) benefits associated with CCUS projects is one of the activities that will help to attract green financing. Investors are looking for a clear and transparent perspective on project’s ESG impact prior to financing for credit risk assessment, security selection and asset allocation during the investment cycle. Different tools exist that can be used to assess the ESG impact including the Worldbank Environmental and Social Standards (ESS) and the UNRMS/UNFC systems of the United Nations directly related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s). UNFC is an integrative classification system that addresses technical, environmental, social, economic and technical/industrial aspects and values of resource-based projects for a range of resources including storage.  The ultimate goal of using a framework system like UNFC to evaluate the ESG’s is to help promoting private investment in CCUS projects meeting growing investor needs not only for looking at financial returns, but also producing positive environmental and social impact.