Is CCUS the solution?

Few people dispute that CO₂ emissions must decrease. But views of CCUS range from it being the saviour of the oil and gas industry to a cynical attempt to keep hydrocarbons flowing at any cost. Either way, it is urgently needed

If oil and gas professionals from around the world, braving the coronavirus and British winter, were expecting a warm welcome from the Energy Institute at International Petroleum (IP) Week in late February, they were in for a rude ­awakening. “We need to remove greenhouse gases from our energy system as quickly as possible,” according to the Energy Institute president Steve Holliday in his opening address. “It may even challenge the very relevance and survival of this sector.” He adds that the challenge remains “enormous” to “radically” change the energy system. He expects the November COP26 meeting in Glasgow to be about “just how ambitious we can be in constraining carbon”. He is not conte