The Asia-Pacific region has significant potential to use carbon capture and storage (CCS) as part of a broader decarbonisation drive, but while momentum is increasing there are still gaps in the legal and regulatory frameworks required to support such a move, according to a new report.
The report: CCS in the Asia - Pacific Region was prepared by the Global CCS Institute for the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, a CEO-led initiative comprised of 12 of the world’s leading oil and gas companies, producing around 25% of global oil and gas on an operated basis.
Focused on assessing the conditions under which CCS could move from policy recognition and early project activity to scalable regional deployment, the report reviews CCS policy, legal, regulatory and commercial frameworks in nine APAC countries including Australia, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea and Singapore, shares an assessment of carbon dioxide storage in key APAC countries, and sets out economic and energy-system modelling for CCS pathways for Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries.
The report finds that policy initiatives are being established to support CCS across selected Asia-Pacific economies: Australia and Japan were early movers, the report notes. In addition, regional collaboration on CCS is increasing with a growing number of bilateral agreements being concluded. Notable agreements include those involving Japan, Australia, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and South Korea. “These agreements focus on enabling cross-border CCS value chains in the region and beyond,” the report says.
The report also notes the faster development of legal and regulatory frameworks covering the full CCS project lifecycle, including provisions for transboundary carbon dioxide transport and storage. “These developments are important,” the report says “because they are laying the legal foundations not only for domestic storage projects, but also for future regional storage hubs. Many countries in the region do not have CCS-specific legal frameworks, which creates uncertainty for regional CCS deployment.”
Looking at storage infrastructure, the report finds that APAC has “numerous suitable storage basins and abundant potential carbon dioxide storage resources. But the level of data quality, public information, and site-specific characterisation varies widely by country.” Australia, Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia are highlighted as countries with strong carbon dioxide storage potential.
Storage potential has an impact on the economics of CCS with the report noting that “constrained storage development increases the cost of reaching net-zero.” In addition storage availability affects carbon dioxide prices, physical carbon dioxide transport needs and broader energy-system structure.
The report adds: “Where domestic storage is unavailable or constrained, carbon dioxide shipping becomes more important. Singapore, which has no domestic storage capacity and South Korea, which has very limited storage capacity, rely on transport of captured carbon dioxide to other regions where storage is available.” The report says and warns that: “Delays in storage development will “potentially carry a cost over longer time horizons, constraining available pathways to net-zero and potentially increasing the price of reaching it.”
The report concludes: “With government and industry across the ASEAN region increasingly pursuing opportunities to collaborate on regional carbon dioxide transport and storage projects, the resolution of legal and regulatory issues governing the operation of these activities will be critical.”
Further reading:
- CCS: Two carbon capture projects ready for construction
- Carbon capture and storage: This major CCS project just got the green light
- CNOOC, Exxon and Shell evaluate development of world-scale CCS project in China
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