Exclusive: CCUS Industry Poised for Standardization, Cost Reduction

Jaxon Caines, technology reporter, Hart Energy: I am Jaxon Caines with Hart Energy, and we're here at Gastech Exhibition & Conference 2024. I'm with Gary LeMaire, the senior director of CCUS at Worley, and we're here to talk about CCUS (carbon capture, utilization and storage). So to start things off, what role do you see CCUS playing in the global effort to reach net zero emissions?

Gary LeMaire, senior director of CCUS, Worley: I see CCUS playing a very critical role in meeting net zero targets for the world. For example, according to the IEA (International Energy Agency), the target for sustainable development scenario has a need to capture 5.6 gigatons by 2050. To kind of give a perspective to that, currently we only capture around 50 million tons per annum. So that's quite a large increase from today's operation. Also, even when you look at a specific industry, such as cement, [there’s] an organization GCCA (Global Cement and Concrete Association) that's come out with a plan to net zero. And for that industry, they're looking to need about a 36% contribution from CCUS for the cement industry to achieve net zero by 2050. So it definitely has a significant role to play.

JC: Okay. Now what are some of the challenges that you see when it comes to the implementation of CCUS technologies?

GL: I think there's two major challenges. The first is to have a robust economic value chain in place. And if you only kind of work backwards with CCUS: first you have to have storage available, good geology [and] proximity to that certainly helps. But also the ability to gain a permit in a timely fashion is a key enabler. Transportation pipelines exist today. They've operated safely in many jurisdictions, but the distance obviously affects the cost. So hopefully the emitters are close to a storage source. Permitting is something that's also needed and it can be challenging to get those in place. When you think about utilization, a lot of the technologies are available, but they're not available to convert the quantity of CO₂ that's available. Maturing those technologies to meet the capacity is a challenge. So right now, the forecast is for most of the CO₂ captured to be permanently sequestered. When you look at just capture, the primary challenge there is the cost. It’s capital intensive and most have a fairly significant operating cost that will need to be born throughout the life of the facility.

JC: And since we're already talking about challenges, what are some of the challenges as far as regulatory issues and policy that sort of slow down the growth of CCUS technologies?

GL: I think to answer that in a word is uncertainty. There is uncertainty around some details of policy and regulations. There's also uncertainty about the duration. Just for example, we're sitting in Houston, so the IRA came out a couple years ago and it provides framework and policy, but it has a 12-year duration. So, a lot of our customers are struggling to understand what they should assume for business plans for year 13 and beyond. For a facility that would be built and have a 20 [year] or 25 [year], 30 year life to it. So that uncertainty is certainly a challenge. Also, the permitting timelines specifically for Class VI wells here in the states, I think to put kind of an average on it, it's on the order of a couple years. Only three states have primacy right now. So you can put in an application for Class IV wells onshore and it's in the queue. So to have a project move full steam ahead, it's been very challenging.

JC: So for my next question, what are some advancements that you see in CCUS technology that you're excited about?

GL: I think what gets me excited are the technologies that can reduce the cost and can scale up and out. I want to scale up meeting the larger capacities, and also being able to meet the demand as far as replicating those across the users. Emerging technologies, I'm not talking about the current day, mean based absorption technologies. Those will have some advancements. But, what gets me excited is those that have step changes in cost reductions, and those are things like absorption technologies and cryogenic technologies that can really scale up metal organic frameworks, things like that, have me pretty excited. Also, there's a lot of activity right now looking at potentially combining carbon capture technologies, whether it's membrane plus another type of capture, or even oxy combustion or exhaust gas or circulation to help improve the concentration of CO₂ going to these other capture facilities. So we're looking at a lot of combinations and that might unlock some cost savings as well.

JC:  Speaking specifically about Worley, what are some of the ways that you collaborate with other companies or governments to sort of advance CCUS efforts?

GL: We work closely with customers, but more specifically to answer your question, we are members of certain organizations. We're members of Global CCS Institute, where we share learnings and collaborate to discuss the challenges that we're all facing. Also, [members of] CCSA organization over in Europe, we're also in touch with academia. So here again in the states, just as an example, we work collaboratively with Rice University, with the Rice Global E&C forum, as well as the UT Carbon Management program that looks into research and development of certain technologies.

JC: What are some of the promising markets that you see emerging for CCUS technologies?

GL: I think to answer that, the jurisdictions that have adequate infrastructure to enable readily scalable deployment are good. So when you think about geographies, you think of North America. The U.S. and Canada have supportive frameworks in place as well as the U.K. and Europe. Geology is helpful as well. The U.S. and Canada have favorable geology in certain areas of the country. In the U.K. and Europe, a lot of that is planned for the North Sea, which they know quite well, we can use depleted oil and gas reservoirs for those sinks.

JC: Now, what are some of the future and trends or things that you expect to happen within the CCUS market?

GL: I would expect more standardization, More replication [and] certainly modularization to help drive down costs. To me, [to meet] net zero demand we need to come up with more standardized solutions. We understand that they're not going to be cookie cutter, but having a good starting point and then creating an optimized solution. But having a really good starting point is an area that we see occurring over the next decade as we implement the learnings over these first few projects. And when I refer to that, I'm referring to the post combustion projects because pre-combustion application of carbon capture has been around for decades. But what is lesser understood is the post combustion applications.

JC: Well, Gary, thank you for your time.

GL: I appreciate it. Thank you, Jaxon.

JC: And that's a wrap. To find out more about Worley, go to hartenergy.com.