Storage liabilities are a key risk for transport & storage operators. Government CCUS regulation should be clear on carbon dioxide storage liability: who is responsible at each stage of injection, monitoring and long-term stewardship; and how risk is shared and eventually transferred to government.
The transport & storage operator will need to spend money upfront to quantify the storage capacity and de-risk it for potential customers. For example, geological de-risking may require shooting seismic and drilling wells. Upfront investment in de-risking storage will make it much easier to scale CCUS hubs, but few policymakers have focused on this to date.
The operator will also need to identify the specifications (around purity and pressure) of the carbon dioxide to be delivered to the T&S operator. Looser specifications makes post-capture compression and purification cheaper for emitters, but impurities in the carbon dioxide – such as water, nitrogen, sulphur oxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and mercury – can have major implications, eg corrosion, for transportation and storage infrastructure.