ON-SHORE CCS FOR CEMENT

Adam Bott, SLB, makes the case for on-shore CO₂ capture and storage (CCS) in the cement sector

SLB is the largest oil field service company worldwide, with more than 100,000 employees, bases in more than 100 countries and more than 70 research and engineering facilities across the globe. SLB has embraced 2050 net zero targets and is reducing its own carbon footprint, as well as building a New Energy organization. This is tasked with accelerating the development and deployment of first-of-a-kind projects in the areas of geothermal, critical minerals, energy storage, hydrogen power and, of course, CO₂ capture and storage (CCS). Indeed, SLB recently expanded its CCS expertise with the acquisition of Aker Carbon Capture, allowing it to access capabilities along the full CCS value chain.

SLB has transferred its 100-plus years of subsurface experience from oil and gas extraction into this new area, since as early as the 1990s, when initial interest in CCS first developed. A lot of this expertise is from enhanced oil recovery (EOR), in which CO₂ is injected underground to force oil up to the surface. EOR is very common in the US, where CO₂ occurs naturally and is transported via pipelines to onshore oil fields. EOR activities have provided SLB and the wider oil services industry with a body of knowledge in how CO2 behaves in the subsurface, as well as experience in CO₂ pipeline transportation. SLB's activities have now developed into storage projects and government-supported projects to arrive where we are today, a company that offers leading technologies to screen, evaluate, design, build and operate CCS sites.