India Energy Week 2025 has heard plenty on LNG and fossil fuel development, alongside upbeat forecasts for green hydrogen as the country looks to transform itself into a major clean tech hub for the energy transition.
What has been more muted is carbon capture and storage (CCS), indicative of its immaturity. But there is no doubt it will be pivotal if India is to reach its 2070 Net Zero target.
Given the projected growth in industry and transport across the country, CO2 emissions are one enormous ‘elephant in the room’ for Indian policymakers as it continues to advocate green technologies – making CCS even more pivotal to future energy strategies.
The prize is large. CCUS capacity could total as much as 750 million metric tonnes per year by 2050, but conceptually as much as economically, that looks a long way off.
The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has established a task force to create a strategy for CCS in the oil and gas sector, and there are now signs of market movement.
Yesterday independent power producer SEIL Energy India and the Indian Institute of Technology Madras joined forces to develop CO2 capture technology, by developing Chemogol, a patented nanoparticle-based solvent that aims to enhance capture efficiency.
A team led by Professor Jitendra Sangwai is partnering with SEIL Energy India to develop novel methods for carbon capture, including developing a pilot plant demonstrator to capture carbon from coal-fired power plant stacks. Decarbonising industrial clusters is crucial for the transition, and it won’t happen without carbon capture.
In another move, Fugro recently embarked on its first CCS project, partnering with Eco Carbon Engineering Solutions Limited in association with Visakha Pharma City Limited, and the Environmental Geotechnology Laboratory, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Bombay (Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay).
The initiative aims to significantly reduce carbon emissions from a pharmaceutical plant in the Pharmaceutical Estate in Visakhapatnam by capturing CO2 and storing it deep inside the subsurface.
“We see the value that capturing and storing CO2 holds for the future and we look forward to supporting more clients in their CCS journey,” said Soumendra Ganguly, Country Manager, Fugro, India.
India’s opportunity lies not only on land but offshore. Researchers from IIT Madras believe the Indian Ocean could be a promising site for storing massive amounts of CO2 permanently. They propose CO2 storage in liquid pools or solid hydrates at certain depths, which they believe won’t harm marine ecosystems.
The Bay of Bengal, the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, could alone sequester ‘several hundred gigatonnes’ of anthropogenic CO2 in ocean and marine sediments.
A McKinsey report published in 2022 noted the need to accelerate implementation of a compliance carbon market by this year. “This would also require the creation of demand signals, especially in hard-to-abate sectors, and incentives linked to investments in newer technologies like CCUS,” it states.
The British Geological Survey (BGS) has been working to improve understanding of the potential for CO2 storage as part of its International Geoscience Research and Development programme.
During a trip to India in early 2023, BGS researchers met a wide range of stakeholders from industry, academia and policy groups to discuss the prospect of CO2 storage.
Based on these discussions, it summarised the knowledge gaps that need to be addressed to enable India to make informed decisions on CCS.
These relate to the need to identify and catalogue suitable geological storage locations; ensure protection of groundwater, soil and the surface environment; better understand baseline seismicity and potential impacts of CO2 injection; develop appropriate monitoring methodologies for storage; and understand public attitudes towards such technologies.
Rocks such as the thick Deccan Trap basalt sequences from Mahabaleshwar have been proposed as potential storage reservoirs for disposal of CO2 due to their reactive mineral components that allow for trapping of CO2 in solid mineral form.
