Carbon capture bodies announce 'pause' to find best approach

The public bodies responsible regulating carbon capture and storage in the North Sea will halt new applications later this month in order to develop an "optimum" approach to future licensing rounds.

The North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), The Crown Estate (TCE) and Crown Estate Scotland (CES) released a joint statement over the weekend outlining their "continued commitment" to working together to meet the UK Government’s ambitious carbon storage targets of 20-30 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions per year by 2030, and over 50 million tonnes by 2035.

Developments will require to move at pace to reach these ambitious targets, but the current licensing regime requires firms to seek approvals from two of the three bodies, depending on where the site is located.

They are required to apply for both a carbon storage licence, provided by the NSTA – responsible for the licensing, permitting and stewarding of offshore carbon storage sites - alongside a storage agreement for lease, granted by TCE or CES respectively - responsible for leasing the seabed - for the opportunity to develop carbon storage opportunities.

The three bodies said yesterday that a co-ordinated approach to managing the seabed is "critical" to enable the UK to unlock the full potential of CCUS in the UKCS, accelerate the path to net zero, and creating lasting benefits.

To provide the clarity and certainty needed to progress Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) development at pace, three areas of focus were announced:

• To facilitate future planning, the window for nominations to the NSTA for new areas for potential carbon storage, which was opened last year, remains open until 13 May 2022. After that there will be a short pause by the NSTA before considering any further areas for potential carbon dioxide storage.
• All nominations received in this current window and existing licence applications to the NSTA, and lease applications to TCE or CES from developers, will continue to be reviewed, with the outcome of these processes announced by each organisation in due course.
• In order to help meet government targets and industry demand, all three organisations are exploring the optimal approach to carbon storage licensing and leasing, including the potential for future leasing and licensing rounds for offshore areas.

You can read the full statement here.