Carbon capture and storage

If society is to reach the goal of the Paris Agreement and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, it will need to widely deploy carbon capture and storage (CCS) in hard-to-abate sectors and remove carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere. CCS is a combination of technologies that capture and store carbon dioxide deep underground or under the seabed, preventing its release into the atmosphere.

In 2023, Shell’s spending on CCS opportunities (operating expenses and cash capital expenditure) amounted to around $340 million, an increase of 55% from $220 million in 2022.

By the end of 2023, the Shell-operated Quest CCS project at the Scotford upgrader in Canada (Shell interest 10%) had captured and safely stored more than 8.8 million tonnes of CO₂ since it began operating in 2015. We are exploring the possibility of increasing CCS capacity at the Scotford Complex, initially by 750,000 tonnes a year, through our proposed Polaris project and Atlas Carbon Sequestration Hub.

In Australia, the Gorgon CCS project (Shell interest 25%, operated by Chevron), reported it had stored more than 9 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent as of December 2023. In addition to these significant emission reductions, Chevron has confirmed it had acquired and surrendered carbon credits to address historical injection shortfalls. The joint venture will also invest $27 million in lower-carbon projects in Western Australia. Gorgon started operating in 2019 and is the largest CCS operation in the world.

In May 2023, our Northern Lights CO₂ transport and storage joint venture (Shell interest 33.3%) in Norway signed agreements with Yara, the crop nutrition company, and Ørsted, the renewable energy company, to transport and store 830,000 tonnes and 430,000 tonnes of CO₂ a year respectively. The CO₂ will be transported by ship from plants in the Netherlands and Denmark and permanently stored 2,600 metres below the seabed in the North Sea. Northern Lights is under construction and is expected to start operations in 2025.

In the UK, the Acorn CO₂ transport and storage project (Shell interest 30%), for which we are the technology developer, advanced to the next stage of government approval. Acorn aims to use decommissioned oil and gas infrastructure to help local industries decarbonise their operations. The CO₂ will be transported and permanently stored 2,500 metres below the North Sea. Acorn is part of the UK government’s ambition to capture and store 20–30 million tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2030.

Also in the UK, Shell and Esso Exploration and Production UK were jointly awarded three carbon storage appraisal licences in the UK’s first-ever carbon storage licensing round. The joint venture (Shell interest 50%) will evaluate three sites in the North Sea for the potential storage of CO₂ captured and transported from industrial facilities.

Shell also won an order in 2023 for its CANSOLV^® carbon capture technology for the world’s largest post-combustion carbon capture, utilisation and storage plant. The plant, in Abu Dhabi, UAE, will capture and permanently store 1.5 million tonnes of CO₂ a year at a gas processing plant, helping Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) to decarbonise its operations.

Read more about our CCS projects at www.shell.com/ccs.