The Vital Role of CCUS | SLB

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

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

Abating carbon with CCUS

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.

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.

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.
Key elements for scaling up CCUS: common infrastructure, economic incentives, and advanced tech
Isometric diagram showing co2 capture, transport, and storage

Achieving common infrastructure

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 CCUS projects more feasible. And using a suite of business models—from technical agreements to joint ventures—we help ensure a successful project.

Economic incentives

Governments around the world are expanding economic incentives to accelerate CCUS as a key component of industrial decarbonization and climate strategy.

In the United States, the Section 45Q tax credit—reinforced under the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB)—offers up to $85 per ton for CO₂ captured from industrial and power sources and $180 per ton for direct air capture, with equal credit for both geologic storage and utilization. The credit’s transferability and inflation adjustments have also been preserved, providing long-term certainty for investors and developers. The European Union is advancing its Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA) and expanding its Emissions Trading System (ETS) to support CO₂ storage infrastructure and cross-border carbon management. Canada continues to deploy federal tax credits and provincial funding, particularly through Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA), to support industrial-scale CCUS and clean hydrogen. Australia is embedding CCUS into its national Net Zero Plan, with targeted support for geological storage and hard-to-abate sectors. Meanwhile, countries like China, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia are investing in large-scale CCUS hubs as part of their broader energy transition strategies.

These global efforts reflect a growing consensus: robust economic incentives—ranging from tax credits and grants to carbon pricing and infrastructure funding—are essential to scaling CCUS technologies, attracting private capital, and achieving climate targets at speed and scale.

Photo of person in blue coveralls walking between large tanks and pipes
Potograph of woman in blue coveralls in a lab holding samples of solvent (SLBHoustonCarbon00003-Edited)

Unique carbon capture technology

SLB’s carbon capture technology addresses different streams of CO2 emissions using a unique, versatile nonaqueous solvent to drive down carbon capture costs.

Closer view of the 3D Abstract Image for Carbon Capture Sequestration Hero Solution

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.

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