Development of strategies for CO2 value chain deployment:ECCO European value chain for CO2

The ECCO project has been a three-year collaboration project under the EU 7th framework program for research. The main objective of ECCO has been to facilitate strategic decision making regarding early and future implementation of CO2 Capture and Storage (CCS) value chains. The ECCO project has developed a methodology and a supporting software tool for pre-feasibility studies of CCS value chains with and without Enhanced Oil or Gas Recovery (EOGR). Conclusions and recommendations for the realization of CCS value chains are presented in this paper. The overall conclusion, based on the work conducted in ECCO, is that political willingness is crucial in order to make CCS happen on a scale that contributes to reaching the EU climate goals. If left to the market, investments in CCS technology development are likely to be insufficient, although using CO2 for EOGR could improve the economics of a CCS value chain. It is also clear that economic incentives are necessary for overcoming issues such as long-term liability of CO2 storage, third-party access to pipeline and storage and cross-border liability of storage integrity.