Making Carbon Capture Pay: CCUS at Commercial Scale

Carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) sits at very different levels of maturity and cost across applications. Capture on concentrated streams is commercially viable in places, while capture on dilute streams and harder sectors remains costly or unproven at scale. With global CCUS investment increasing, the question moves from an academic one to a practical one about what pays. Commercial viability is complicated by the gap between theoretical and operational figures. Efficiency metrics such as capture rates and cost per tonne differ materially from those projected at design stage, and projects also depend on transport-and-storage access, a workable carbon price and secured offtake to be bankable. The discussion will focus on transport and storage infrastructure, the business models and policy support that make projects commercially viable, and separating what is deployable now from what still needs another cost-and-scale cycle.