The vital role of CCUS

SLB’s bold approach to a practical and viable carbon abatement solution

3D render of white and blue spheres (CCUS-03-hero)

Closing the emissions gap with CCUS

The world’s carbon budget is running out. So, decarbonization across all industry sectors using practical and economical solutions is crucial to reach net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As the gap between net zero ambitions and actual cumulative CO₂ emissions grows, all scenarios are increasingly pivoting toward carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration (CCUS) as a critical lever to close this gap.

CCUS plays a vital role in carbon abatement as one of the few viable decarbonization mechanisms. But it doesn’t come without its challenges. A new market ecosystem needs to be established to overcome the challenges we face today.

Diagram showing the 15-20% increase each year needed to close the emissions gap with CCUS

Today, the industry is capturing and storing around 40 million metric tons per year. Scaling up to gigatons per year is needed to reach net zero by 2050.

Today, the industry is capturing and storing ~40 million metric tons per year. Carbon capture and sequestration are needed at gigaton scale by 2050 to reach net zero. Watch as our SLB experts discuss the challenges facing the CCUS industry and how our bold approach enables CCUS across different industrial sectors.

The Vital Role of CCUS and SLB's Involvement

SLB's Carbon Solutions team discusses challenges facing the CCUS industry and how we’re poised to ensure your project’s success.

Diagram showing our success factors across different streams of CO2 emissions

CCUS success factors.

Project economics

Historically, project economics have stalled CCUS progression. But combining technological advancement and more recent economic incentives through various policy framework is making CCUS more investable.

Policy front: The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in the US provides tax incentives that will give small- to midscale CCUS projects a better chance at becoming economical. In Europe, the revision of the Emissions Trading System (ETS) covers a broader range of sectors and GHG emissions. In Canada, the Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA) allocates multimillion dollars to carbon capture projects. Australia is also seeing significant policy and budgetary support from the federal government.

Technology front: SLB’s carbon capture technology addresses different streams of CO₂ emissions to drive meaningful cost reductions across the CCUS value chain. We also derisk storage site selections through domain expertise and data integration to improve CCUS project economics.

Scaling CCUS

Scaling up CCUS will require flexible business models and partnerships across sectors—from emitters to pore space owners. This is where we leverage our experience and expertise.

SLB has been actively involved in CCUS across industries for two decades. Building on our core strengths, we’re able to forge new partnerships across the entire value chain. This means combining the best minds and skillsets—from carbon capture and transport to sequestration—to accelerate decarbonization using large industrial hubs. Through these hubs, emitters can use common transport and sequestration infrastructure. This creates a network that reduces unit costs for all organizations involved and makes them more feasible. And using a suite of business models—from technical agreements to joint ventures—SLB will play a key role to ensure a successful project.

Photo of person in blue coveralls walking between large tanks and pipes

Photo of person walking, large trucks with wheeled platforms on either side

Proximity to storage

Finding the right formation to store the CO₂ once captured depends on many technical factors. And distance from the capture to sequestration site should be taken into consideration. Leveraging plants within proximity to storage or common infrastructure (hubs) greatly increases a project’s chance of success.

Regulatory regime, innovative technology, and partnerships will drive CCUS growth in the coming decade. Time and scale are of the essence. SLB is poised to bring your CCUS project to fruition—effectively and economically—to address climate change.

Dive deeper

Carbon Capture

Differentiated technologies and deep expertise to optimize your carbon capture and lower costs. View
Carbon Sequestration

Integrated solutions for selecting, planning, constructing, operating, and monitoring carbon storage sites. View
Carbon Capture & Processing

Processing systems knowledge and intelligent software to help determine the capture technology fit for you. View
Carbon Transport

Captured carbon only goes as far as delivering it with the highest safety and optimization in mind. View
Carbon Sequestration Selection & Design

Planning the carbon storage site with capacity, injectivity, and containment in mind. View
Carbon Sequestration Construction

Depend on SLB to maintain the integrity of your carbon storage for the future. View
Carbon Monitoring, Verification & Reporting

Proactive and integrated monitoring to keep your carbon sequestration operations running smoothly. View

Fundamental carbon capture and sequestration for managers

This virtual course will familiarize management personnel across industries about CCUS. Topics include a discussion on the global outlook for CCUS, integrated workflows for projects, key technologies, case studies, and more.

Carbon capture and sequestration—a rapidly growing industry

This webinar discusses the critical stages to planning and implementing successful CCUS projects. It also presents case studies and talks about how SLB evolved its technology portfolio to support CCUS.

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Executive viewpoint: The vital role of CCUS in the net-zero energy transition

For more than a century, fossil fuels have been central to economic development, helping build the modern world as we know it. But with climate change and global warming posing existential threats to society, industries across all sectors must find practical and economical ways to decarbonize their operations and their products.

Read World Oil article

Press releases

Schlumberger and RTI International Partner to Accelerate the Industrialization of Innovative Carbon Capture Technology

Schlumberger announced today that it has entered into an agreement with RTI International, a nonprofit research institute, to accelerate the industrialization and scale-up of its proprietary non-aqueous solvent (NAS) technology, which enhances the efficiency of absorption-based carbon capture. View
Schlumberger and Sintela Announce Technology Sharing Agreement to Advance Fiber-Optic Solutions Across Multiple Industries

Schlumberger and Sintela announced today that they have signed an agreement to co-develop new fiber-optic solutions for multiple industrial markets. View
LafargeHolcim and Schlumberger New Energy Explore Carbon Capture and Storage Solutions

LafargeHolcim and Schlumberger New Energy will explore the development of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) solutions. View
Schlumberger DELFI Digital Platform Selected by Northern Lights JV for CO2 Project

Schlumberger will deploy the DELFI cognitive E&P environment on the Norwegian CO2 project by the Northern Lights Joint Venture (NL), to streamline subsurface workflows and longer-term modeling and surveillance of CO2 sequestration. View

Explore case studies

US Department of Energy and ADM Optimize Carbon Sequestration Using Multizonal Intelligent Completion

Real-time monitoring and control with modular completion equipment and Optiq fiber-optic solution. View
Minnkota Power Partners with SLB for CO2 Storage Reservoir Evaluation

Subsurface data acquisition, analysis, and modeling creates evaluation blueprint and future Class VI injection well permitting. View
Fiber Optics Improves Subsurface Understanding for a CCS Project

Optiq Seismic solution efficiently acquired data across four wells using both multimode and single-mode fiber. View