Assessment of transboundary effects at LBr-1 and regulatory solutions. ENOS D4.6 report

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00025798%3A_____%2F21%3A00000213" target="_blank" >RIV/00025798:_____/21:00000213 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/documents/downloadPublic?documentIds=080166e5c7ca1666&appId=PPGMS" target="_blank" >https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/documents/downloadPublic?documentIds=080166e5c7ca1666&appId=PPGMS</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Assessment of transboundary effects at LBr-1 and regulatory solutions. ENOS D4.6 report

Original language description

The national transpositions of the EU CCS Directive do not fully address transboundary issues, which creates hurdles for utilization of promising storage sites situated on or near Member States boundaries. To understand how these hurdles could look like in practice, the ENOS project team carried out a study using the practical example of the Czech LBr-1 site. LBr-1 – one of the ENOS research sites – is an abandoned hydrocarbon field situated in the Czech part of the Vienna Basin, close to the Czech-Slovak border. Thus, it represents a very suitable subject for studying various transboundary issues related to geological storage of CO2. The main objective of the study was to evaluate any transboundary issues that might arise from geological storage of CO2 in the LBr-1 field, identify cases that are difficult to handle, including those where existing legislation and regulations is unclear or lacking, and suggest solutions. The assessment was focussed on three potential storage scenarios: small-scale storage pilot, large-scale storage and CO2-EOR with permanent storage.At first, currently valid national legislations relevant to CO2 geological storage in the Czech Republic and Slovakia were examined and several legislative and regulatory barriers for CCUS were identified. In general, the current status of CCUS legislation in both countries reflects the position of the technology in their decarbonisation strategies. This position is currently weak and, as a consequence, the relevant legislation and regulations do not really support CCUS deployment. This needs to be changed if the potential of the technology to decarbonise the national economies shall be utilised. In Czechia, the identified barriers can be removed by relatively easy and simple improvements of legislation. In Slovakia, however, the overall regulatory approach needs to be changed to enable CO2 storage on its territory. This especially concerns re-considering the priorities for subsurface use and the approach to the solution of conflicts of interest.In the second step, implications of the current legislation and regulatory regimes on the LBr-1 site itself were studied. The most important finding is that both the storage site and storage complex are located entirely on the territory of the Czech Republic. However, several transboundary issues were identified, especially those that are related to possible leakage of CO2 from the storage complex.Four possible types of transboundary issues were examined in detail – pressure build-up, possible leakage through boreholes, possible leakage through faults and possible migration of fluids out of the reservoir due to exceeding spill points. While pressure build-up and leakage through faults do not appear to cause transboundary issues, the other two phenomena need to be carefully considered. In case CO2 leakage appears either through abandoned wells or due to exceeding the southern spill point, the analysis of possible leakage pathways shows that the CO2 could migrate into the territory of Slovakia. These findings mean that a cooperation of regulatory authorities from both Czech and Slovak Republics will be necessary to prepare and operate the storage site, which is a significant complicating factor for possible injection of CO2 at LBr-1.Despite of this, the realisation of a CO2 storage project on the site is considered viable, especially in the basic pilot storage scenario. This case avoids the spill-point related concerns and involves only a limited number of abandoned wells that need to be taken care of concerning their abandonment status. The lack of experience with CO2 storage sites and absence of any regulatory precedents in both countries will require a lot of pioneering work do be done by both the project developer and the relevant authorities. This process, however, cannot be avoided, simply because both sides need to gain the necessary experience.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

O - Miscellaneous

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

10505 - Geology

Project

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Continuities

R - Projekt Ramcoveho programu EK

Publication year

2021

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů