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The clusters identified in the CCUS Hub Search represent the results from a bespoke analytical tool that OGCI developed with BCG. The tool integrates three key processes – data preparation, clustering, and prioritization – to develop a bottom-up assessment of the techno-economic potential for CCUS hubs across 56 countries.
Geo-located asset level data on emissions and storage is at the core of the analysis. Both public and proprietary sources were used to identify the location of different emitters and the potential depleted oil and gas reservoirs or saline aquifers where the captured CO2 can be sequestered. A critical part of this step was validating the bottom-up estimates against reliable top-down reports on emissions in the 56 countries covered.
A combination of density and multi-variate algorithms were used to create clusters of emitters in CCUS relevant industries. The algorithms are set up to meet a number of objectives that improve hub economics – a high number of emitters and emissions within the cluster, geographic proximity, and the presence of sources with high concentrations of CO2. The resulting clusters were also refined for the presence of geographical barriers (e.g. mountain ranges) that may impede the creation of transport and storage infrastructure.
The clusters were finally matched with suitable storage (minimum size of 100 MtCO2) and two end-to-end cost assessments were made to rank the clusters into cost tiers. The first full scale assessment assumes every relevant emitter in the cluster deploys CCUS. While this minimises the overall transport & storage cost, it overestimates the CCUS deployment potential. A second optimised scale assessment targets clusters that represent the best trade-off between achieving a minimum scale (2MtCO2) and deploying CCUS on assets for which it is a lower cost abatement lever.
The CCUS Hub Search will be updated regularly. In 2023, we incorporated data from the CO2 Storage Resource Catalogue into the hub search tool. This uses the SRMS methodology to classify the availability and commercial maturity of storage resource.
The tool was initially developed for OGCI to identify potential CCUS hubs in countries where hubs were not already in development. BCG subsequently added several countries where it had data. Two notable omissions are China and Norway where CCUS hubs are already in development.
The CCUS Hub is designed to support policy-makers, potential hub developers and emitters interested in setting up a CCUS hub by sharing learnings from the most advanced hubs and identifying new ones.