Hamish Wilson, CEO, writes: I recently read The Emperor's New CCS Clothes, made of CO₂ by Terje Hauan, He pointed out, from a European industrial emitter perspective, Norway CCS is too expensive.... pipe to the coast, and then ship to Norway. There are far more lower cost options closer to 'home'.

But I think there is a deeper problem.

CCS does not yet have the commercial model that allowed renewable electricity to scale.

Electricity has a market price. Developers can secure long-term contracts, often backed by CfDs, and raise capital against them. CO₂ does not have an equivalent price signal.

The US comes closest. Its 45Q tax credit creates a bankable per-tonne revenue stream, and it has attracted private-equity capital into industrial CCS - particularly ethanol and ammonia, where capture costs are low. Yet projects are still stalling because EPA Class VI permitting cannot keep pace.

So the constraint is not simply that CCS is “too expensive”. In some industrial applications, it compares favourably with the historic - and system-adjusted current - cost of renewable abatement.

The real question is how to create a durable price for captured and stored carbon, then build a permitting system capable of delivering projects at scale. I set out the numbers, including a direct comparison between ammonia CCS and offshore wind here

In 2019 I wrote that the oil industry should lead the energy transition. I no longer think that’s true. Seven years on, the evidence is fairly clear: investors have not rewarded oil companies for net-zero positioning, and the majors have largely retreated to their core business. Capital goes where the returns are.

That does not mean oil and gas has no role to play.

The industry is unusually well placed to develop CO₂ transport and storage: subsurface expertise, pipelines, complex infrastructure, long-duration projects. But CCS is a waste-disposal business. It will not scale through goodwill or corporate ambition alone.

The real shift is in who leads.

As carbon costs and mechanisms such as CBAM put pressure on heavy industry, emitters will seek the lowest-cost route to decarbonisation. Oil companies can enable that market by developing storage capacity - but regulation and credible compliance costs will have to make the economics work first.

My updated view: oil companies will not lead the transition voluntarily. They will participate where their capabilities matter and the commercial case is real.

Leading oil and gas professionals Hamish Wilson, Bill Senior, Tony Smith, Martin Dru and Sarah Milne are today launching BluEnergy, committed to enabling oil and gas companies to leverage their existing asset base to create low carbon energy streams, generating value whilst reducing carbon intensity.

Bill Senior is one of the world’s leading Carbon Capture and Storage experts with over 20 years experience and knowledge of the global landscape, projects, geological storage and the policy/ regulatory environment. Here are some of the reports he has written and/or contributed to that you may find interesting.