Gastech 2025

Capital projects in energy face a 65% failure rate, with operational problems persisting years after startup eroding NPV by ~31% on average. Our analysis of project data reveals six interconnected failure drivers: People & Organisation (26%), Technical Challenges (23%), Governance (18%), External Stakeholders (14%), Contracting & Procurement (13%), and Project Management Processes (9%). Digital technology and AI offer quantifiable solutions—reducing cost estimation time by 40%, improving accuracy by 30%, and cutting engineering effort by 10-20%. Success requires combining disciplined project fundamentals with aggressive digital & AI adoption.

Ship-based transport of liquid CO₂ to sequestration sites offers advantages where direct dense phase pipeline transport from a capture site is either infeasible or uneconomic. However, CO₂ from many different types of capture processes carry many different impurities. Impurities in the CO₂ being captured such as hydrogen, oxygen, water and nitrogen present safety, operational and economic challenges to the liquefaction and storage process which otherwise would not be an issue for pipeline transport. Several purification steps may be required for the CO₂ prior to liquefaction and may impact the choice of technology that would be considered for liquefaction. Appropriate selection of purification and liquefaction technologies including consolidation of pretreatment steps is needed to avoid excessive costs and provide safe operation for production of liquid CO2.

Unlocking supply chain bottlenecks According to McKinsey, over ten projects, representing 100 million tons per annum of LNG capacity, reached final investment decisions in 2023 and 2024. However, rising labour costs, the need to decarbonise the gas value chain, regulatory delays, resource shortages, complex environmental approvals, and infrastructure challenges - particularly in remote locations - are all contributing to cost overruns and project delays. In this highly competitive market projects yet to reach FID may need to reassess their strategies, while those that have, must enhance their capabilities to stay on schedule and prevent cost escalation. What key strategies and innovations are projects adopting to reduce risks, balance costs, and ensure operational readiness during the development phases, while managing regulatory hurdles and the high costs of capital, equipment, and technology? Additionally, what is needed to accelerate LNG projects to support energy security while enabling sustainability.

Recovery of cold energy at import terminals from the regasification of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) has attracted attention over the past decade due to the growth of the LNG trade market and increasing focus on energy efficiency.  More recently focus has expanded the concept of utilising the cold energy available to liquify CO2 for export as part of a wider Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) value chain enabling large scale decarbonisation of local Industries that do not have direct access to a sequestration pipeline connected to a CO2 store.