Letter on carbon: Betting on Berlin

Europe’s CCUS sector needs the German government to deliver on its promise of an ambitious carbon management strategy

Developers of CO₂ storage in the Houston area alone already have plans for 50mt/yr of capacity by 2030—equivalent to the entire EU storage target for the end of the decade, according to German oil and gas company Wintershall DEA. The company has cited this figure to highlight what it sees as the increasingly urgent need for European policymakers to get their act together on CCUS regulation or risk losing out on investment to the US. “And guess what? There are lots of FID projects [in the US] already on the back of the fiscal and regulatory certainty that the US has put in place for developers,” said Wintershall’s CFO, Paul Smith. “We urge European governments to do the same or be left behind