This week the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) hosted a webinar with the Global CCS Initiative and the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) CCUS Initiative following the release of the 'CCUS in the Indian cement industry - A review of CO2 hubs and storage facilities'. While the country with the largest population is committed to achieving net zero by 2070, India currently emits 5.8 per cent of its CO2 emissions from cement manufacture. For the industry to decarbonise, it needs safe storage areas for the captured CO2 which this report attempts to locate.

India's cement sector is estimated by the CEM to have 150 large integrated plants, 116 grinding units, five clinker plants and a total of ~333 cement manufacturing units. The country’s installed cement capacity is estimated by the CEM to be 594Mta and has a CAGR of 8-12 per cent. However, India's market has a comparatively low cement consumption of 260kg per capita compared to a world average of 500kg per capita. Given the scale of India's cement sector, the IEA reports that the potential for carbon capture is huge as the country is likely to have 20 per cent of the world’s CCS market by 2060. 

To date storage of CO₂ has not been a major consideration. However, India has a large oil and gas industry as well as saline aquifers and basalt storage areas such as the Deccan Traps and the Rajmahal Traps where CO₂ could potentially be stored.

Available public data on the CO₂ capacity for storage remains low. But the exploited hydrocarbon sites have potential for CO₂ storage with the Krishna-Godavari Basin on the east coast having the largest potential as a category 1 storage site. Saline formations across 25 basins using pressure values (P50) result in a storage capacity of 618Gt of CO₂. Within this total, 300Gt corresponds to onshore resources, 76Gt to offshore shallow resources and 243Gt to offshore deep resources.

Source-sink matching

Source-sink matching of storage basins to cement manufacturing plants will be a critical cost factor as transport costs will be dramatically reduced when cement plants are located near to potential CO₂ storage basins like Krishna-Godavari. The cluster analysis carried out by the Global CCS Initiative identified 328 cement plants in India and screened 269 of them, while 101 were finally included in the cluster analysis. By using the method of density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN), the report discovered seven clusters for CO₂ storage, consisting of five facilities per hub with a maximum distance between hubs of 100km.

Technoeconomic analysis

The technoeconomic analysis was considered for cement facilities in the Mandapeta Formation Hub for the cost of capture. The 18 plants in this hub had a cost of capture of between US$85.3/t CO₂ and US$130.3/t CO₂.  The report also focussed on the Krishna-Godavari Basin, where the 18 cement plants in this hub have CO₂ emissions of between 0.4-2.2Mta, producing 19.9Mta of CO₂ at full capacity. As the basin is expected to have a mid-range capacity of 5.78Gt of CO₂, it could be 29 years before a new sink would be required.

Next steps

The study reveals that India's hydrocarbon fields are relatively small, only five oil and 12 gas fields offer storage capacity of more than 20MtCO₂, making them appealing for commercial-scale CCS. Only three of the oil fields are almost depleted and are ready for CO₂ storage. Further study will be required for the Deccan and Rajmahal Traps for carbon mineralisation. The cost of CO₂ transport within a hub was estimated at US$3.50/t of CO₂, but the cost for an individual cement plant not associated with a hub rose to US$5.30/t of CO₂. Any estimates will vary as the costs are dependent on inflation and other individual parameters such as location, local labour and energy costs.

The next phase of the study will look at identifying first movers before studying the enabling policies, regulatory frameworks and investment environment for large-scale deployment of CCUS in India.

The full report is available at - CCUS in the Indian cement industry – A review of CO₂ hubs and storage facilities

Published under Cement News