International Oil Company CCUS Business and Technology Models

Carbon dioxide capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) is an important breakthrough for the oil and gas industry to improve energy efficiency and achieve low-carbon transition. The oil and gas industry was one of the first to capture and utilize carbon dioxide on a large scale. International oil companies (IOC) have explored a technology and business development model on CCUS industry. This paper analyses the CCUS business and technology model of seven major IOCs which are ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, bp, Totalenergies, Eni and Equinor. The majors expand CCUS business mainly by direct investment and by M&A as complementation. Their CCUS projects mainly distribute in Europe, the US and Asia Pacific in which the countries have supportive policies. CCUS-EOR is the dominating type of CCUS projects of the major. Besides that, the European majors have provided CCUS solution as services to external users. In terms of business model, developing CCUS in clusters is increasingly viewed by the majors as one of the key to accelerating uptake and most CCUS projects. R&D is also a significant part of the majors CCUS strategy. They have set a 3-step model of “discovery-expansion-practice” in R&D of CCUS. At present, the CCUS industry of Chinese oil companies has gone through three stages: theoretical exploration, technology research and testing, industrial testing and promotion. IOCs experience could provide a certain inspiration to Chinese oil companies to improve the CCUS business. Firstly, it is recommended to take the advantages of industrial synergy and use internal and external carbon sources to develop CCUS-EOR projects. Secondly, it is necessary to promote the application of domestic mature and effective CCUS projects to overseas. Thirdly, Chinese oil companies should strengthen cooperation with outstanding research institutions to accelerate the research of key CCUS technologies and equipment.