Front-load on getting collaboration with partners right: Hubs bring together different industries which may, or may not, have pre-existing commercial relationships and different stakeholder groups all of whom can have distinct and different goals and objectives. One lesson that emerges from the most advanced CCUS hubs is not to skimp on building solid collaboration at the beginning of the project. Ensuring that partners are aligned takes time but is critical.
Get the right people on board: Involve the right people and start the project with positive attitudes and mindsets. Invest in personal relationships.
Be agile: Expect that the rules of the game will change in relation to government support, financing and customer needs. Think win-win and use agile working methods.
Understand your customers: Hub projects involve multiple emitters operating different industrial processes each subject to different regulations and different internal processes. These are the customers for the hub and it’s vital to understand their specific needs. They are typically low-margin businesses, and they are focused on optimizing their production operations – not on the amount of waste product, ie carbon dioxide, they produce. They will know very little about CCUS, their risks and how they can manage them. Even in the early stages, it’s important to go beyond just one or two emitter customers – designing for what success would look like.
Do not play hide and seek: Once you have built trust, show your weaknesses and organize for them. Hub partners should start by focusing on the risk areas and identifying positions to each other before embarking on the heavy load with technical detail otherwise big issues might be discovered at the last moment.
Learn how to work with government: At this early stage of CCUS hub development, policy definition and hub developments are often proceeding in parallel. Resist the temptation to ramp the project up quickly if policy is not mature.