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Shell and CCS

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is the only technology available to mitigate emissions from large-scale fossil fuel use. The technology at each step of the process has been in use for many decades. But before the process can be widely adopted it must be demonstrated end-to-end. Shell is involved in a number of demonstration projects around the world, but government support is needed to allow CCS to become financially viable and widespread.

We are helping to develop large-scale commercial projects and have research partnerships with industry and leading academic institutes. Our current activities include:

Gorgon, Australia: At the Gorgon gas fields off the coast of Western Australia, natural gas will travel through undersea pipelines to a liquefied natural gas plant on nearby Barrow Island. Once injection operations are at full capacity in 2015, 3-4 million tonnes a year of naturally occurring CO₂ produced with the natural gas will be captured and injected into a deep sandstone formation around 2.5 kilometres beneath the island. Chevron is leading the Gorgon project, with Shell and ExxonMobil as partners. Gorgon is the world’s largest CCS project.

Quest, Canada: The Quest project will capture, transport and store over a million tonnes of CO₂ a year from Shell’s Scotford Upgrader in Alberta, Canada, starting in 2015. It is the first CCS project in the oil sands industry. Shell is leading this project on behalf of the other Athabasca Oil Sands Project joint venture owners, Chevron and Marathon. In September 2012 Shell and partners made the final decision to begin construction, with $865 million in funding from the governments of Alberta and Canada to support the project.

The Shell Scotford Upgrader in Alberta, Canada, where a planned CCS project would capture CO2

TCM Mongstad, Norway: The CO₂ Technology Centre Mongstad is the largest demonstration facility of its kind. It will develop and test CO₂ capture technology, potentially capturing up to 100,000 tonnes of CO₂ a year. Centre partners are Gassnova SF, A/S Norske Shell, Sasol and Statoil ASA The centre was inaugurated in May 2012.

Peterhead, UK: Shell and power firm SSE are looking to develop the world’s first full-scale CCS project at a gas-fired power plant. The Peterhead CCS Project could capture up to 10 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions from the Peterhead power station in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It would pipe the CO₂ offshore for long-term storage deep under the North Sea. In March 2013, the UK government identified Peterhead and one further contender for the ongoing UK CCS competition.

Constructing the largest CCS demonstration facility of its kind, TCM Mongstad in Norway

Our other industry research partnerships include the Weyburn-Midale project in Canada. It is researching CO₂ which is first injected into the ground to boost oil recovery and later injected for permanent storage.

In southern Australia we are also involved in the Otway project, where compressed CO₂ and methane from a gas well is piped for injection into a depleted natural gas reservoir two kilometres below the surface. It aims to demonstrate to the local community the safety of storing CO₂. So far, around 65,000 tonnes of CO₂ have been injected and stored in a depleted gas reservoir deep underground and further injections into different formations are planned.

Government funding is vital during the demonstration phase of CCS because companies face high costs with no immediate return. In the longer term, Shell believes governments need to create the policies and frameworks – such as cap and trade mechanisms – that put a price on CO₂. This will encourage the use of all technologies to mitigate CO₂, starting with those that are the quickest and easiest to implement.