How do the characteristics of a new CO2 Transport and Storage industry compare to those of the current Oil and Gas sector? Understanding the implications for the economy-wide impacts of deploying Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) in Scotland and the wider UK economy

As the first stage in CEP’s work on Scotland’s Net Zero Infrastructure (SNZI) programme, our research to understand the wider socioeconomic impacts of Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) in the UK has explored how a CO2 Transport and Storage (T&S) industry is likely to evolve. Our starting point there was to make the benchmark/starting assumption that the T&S industry would have the same upstream supply chain structure as the existing Oil and Gas (O&G) industry. This was on the basis that taking CO2 for offshore storage will involve the reverse of many processes to bringing oil and gas out. However, there is now a need to examine whether this basic assumption needs to be refined in order to generate more accurate and informative insight from our economy-wide scenario simulation analyses. Thus, the next stage in our SNZI work is to refine our analysis drawing on evidence emerging from interviews with industry and policy experts to fully understand the differences between the T&S and O&G sectors. We focus specifically on the operational costs and supply chain requirements as a new T&S industry emerges. This research brief summarises insights emerging from this process that are relevant both to current CCUS decision-making and our ongoing research as part of SNZI.