New report can provide CO2 storage assurance over the full project lifecycle

IOGP has published Seabed and overburden integrity monitoring for offshore CO2 storage (IOGP Report 657). It provides a set of common industry good practices for demonstrating the ongoing integrity of an offshore CO₂ storage project and to provide assurance to operators, local regulatory bodies, or public stakeholders that the injected CO₂ remains in the storage unit over the full project lifecycle.

Using these guidelines, the operator should be able to demonstrate that, in the case of anomalies or unexpected leakage detected in the overburden and/or at seabed, the necessary mitigation measures are in place to identify the issue promptly and thus reduce the impact of the leak to a minimum level.

The scope and focus of this Report are on the marine environment, seabed, and shallow overburden, limited to the units above the storage complex. Based on recent research results and industrial projects, this Report proposes a full set of steps and approaches to be used along with advice on the specific available (or emerging) tools and techniques that can be used to provide industry with the most appropriate methods for defining pre-project start-up baseline conditions and the subsequent ongoing shallow focused monitoring plans during a project’s operational life span and after its decommissioning.

The Report is available to download from the IOGP Publications Library.