The CCS chart below is one that we have shown before and we make the same observations again as little has changed on the “action” side. The number of facilities under discussion, advanced or otherwise, continues to rise – see the Denbury announcement below, for instance - but very little is moving to the construction phase. While in the US this is in part a permitting issue, with the permit process taking several years, once you have a site plan, we get the sense that everyone is waiting for a more supportive incentive program – either a large CO2 penalty (tax) or an increased incentive – such as increasing the 45Q value. MOUs are being signed with landowners – as is the case with Denbury – and potential offtake partners, but very little cash is going out of the door for any of the US projects yet. Given the EIA analysis above, it would seem critical that something is done to move these projects from planning to action fairly quickly – if the US is going to need CCS at scale in 15-20 years, we need to start down that learning curve now. For more see the energy section of today's daily report.
Source: IEA, Natgas Intel, March 2022