Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) projects are being considered globally as a key solution for the Paris Climate Agreement goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050. The technology requires that CO2 is captured from emission sources or from the air, transported, and stored in geological formations. CCS involves the permanent sequestration of CO2 in saline aquifers, depleted oil and gas fields, or other suitable geology, both onshore and offshore.

Storage site screening and ranking is the first step in finding the most suitable site for a successful storage project – identifying the potential sites that merit further evaluation and supporting the technical, environmental, and financial benchmarks for project viability. This paper focuses on ranking potential storage sites in the offshore area of Trinidad and Tobago to inform the 2024 licensing round. It compares the capacity, injectivity, containment, and economic viability of potential areas while identifying potential risks, including environmental impacts. A newly developed digital tool was utilized to combine the complex multicriteria elements of a CCS project, rank the regions, and inform decision making. A relative comparison was made between the Trinidad and Tobago sites and two regions with successfully operating projects, the Illinois Basin in the US and the Utsira Formation in Norway.

The ranking results identified the East Coast Marine Area (ECMA) as the best region for CO2 sequestration based on the evaluated nontechnical and technical criteria. ECMA was ranked comparably to offshore Norway, indicating it has the potential to host a successfully operating CCS site similar to the Sleipner project. A more detailed feasibility study, including data acquisition to improve reservoir characterization, would be required as a next step to derisk the region.