Carbon Capture Is Not the Challenge — Cost Certainty Is
Carbon capture is moving from pilot to commercial scale. We examine the cost drivers, equipment families and benchmarking metrics that define CAPEX for CO2 capture facilities.
The Commercial Reality of Carbon Capture
Carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) is no longer a technology confined to demonstration projects. Regulatory pressure, carbon pricing mechanisms and lender ESG requirements are driving process plant operators to evaluate — and in many cases commit to — capture retrofits and greenfield CCS facilities.
The cost challenge is significant. Capture CAPEX varies enormously depending on feed gas composition, capture technology selection, required purity specification and plant integration complexity. Without robust benchmarking data, early-phase estimates are little more than guesses.
Key Equipment Cost Drivers
The major cost centres in a post-combustion capture facility are well understood: absorber and stripper columns, reboiler heat exchangers, amine circulation pumps, compression trains and utilities. Less well understood is how these costs scale with capture rate, and how location and execution factors affect the total installed cost.
CAF Corporation Kpex platform includes cost models for CO2 capture facilities across multiple technology pathways — post-combustion amine scrubbing, pre-combustion capture and oxyfuel systems.
Benchmarking CO2 Capture Projects
Our analysis of executed CCUS projects shows a wide cost range — from USD 40 per tonne CO2 avoided for large-scale projects with favourable geology to over USD 120 per tonne for small-scale retrofits. The drivers of this spread include compression distance, reservoir characterisation costs and the cost of feed gas treatment upstream of capture.
Implications for Class 4 and Class 3 Estimates
At the pre-FEED stage, owners and developers need Class 4 estimates with accuracy ranges of minus 15% to plus 30%. Achieving this level of definition for CO2 capture facilities requires equipment-level cost models, discipline manhour benchmarks and location-adjusted labour rates — all of which are available within Kpex.
