CCS is a low-margin business. If it’s going to be successfully commercialized at scale, the costs will have to be reduced relative to what companies spend to characterize portfolios of oil and gas prospects. This may mean less subsurface data will be available, requiring professionals to apply their industry experience and use relevant analogues to fill the gaps. But it will also require more efficient and selective project development.
By establishing a workflow incorporating the key elements presented in the Figure below, project teams and decision makers can develop a rigorous risk assessment process that is flexible enough to evolve with a project as it matures, while ensuring critical events and hazards are identified ahead of time.
Companies must be very clear as to what can go wrong in a SCS project, the impacts that can result, and how to mitigate risks in order to obtain and maintain their social license to operate. As a nascent industry, there is a lack of understanding by the general public of what SCS is, and it is burdened by poor publicity through a strong association with oil and gas.
Tolerance for failure will be low. As the Gorgon project (discussed in Posts 2, 3 and 17) has already demonstrated, problems and failures in one project have the potential to negatively impact other projects in the eyes of stakeholders. A robust and thorough quantitative risk assessment workflow for the full lifecycle of a project is critical to demonstrate due diligence.
We at Rose Subsurface Assessment are striving to help companies become more objective, rigorous, and realistic in their expectations for SCS by fully assessing project risk and uncertainty. This includes strategies, workflows and tools such as RoseRA (storage volumes), ProjectRA (decision trees and cash flows), and CarbonSureRA (scoping and risking). If we can be of help, please don’t hesitate to contact us!
