Key site abandonment steps in CO₂ storage

The European Commission published a set of Guidance Documents to assist countries and stakeholders to implement the EU Directive 2009/31/EC on geological storage of CO₂ . The main objectives of the CO ₂ CARE project are closely linked to the three high-level requirements of the Directive with regard to post-closure transfer of liability of a storage site to the relevant competent authority: (i) absence of any detectable leakage, (ii) conformity of actual behaviour of the injected CO₂ with the modelled behaviour, and (iii) the storage site is evolving towards a situation of long-term stability. Guidelines for regulatory compliance and "Best Practice" for site abandonment are being established by distillation and integration of all research findings into site closure and abandonment protocols. The work is based on 9 key injection sites in Europe and worldwide.