NSBTF

AIMS

The aims of the North Sea Basin Task Force are to develop broad, common principles that could form a basis for regulating the storage of CO2 under the North Sea and to provide a consistent basis for managing this activity.

MEMBERSHIP

The Task Force comprises a small group of individuals representing both the public and private sectors in each of its four member countries:

UK: DECC, Defra, BGS, BP, Shell UK, The Crown Estate, and the Scottish Centre for Carbon Storage.

Norway: The Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, The Ministry of the Environment, The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, Det Norske Veritas (DnV), and Statoil.

Netherlands: The Ministry of Environment, The Ministry of Economics, Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN), and SenterNovem

Germany: The Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, RWE, and Vattenfall

INTRODUCTION

Emissions to the atmosphere resulting from the extraction and utilisation of fossil fuels are accelerating climate change; this premise is today almost universally accepted.

Many countries and organisations are working actively to develop technologies and working practices to limit the amount of carbon dioxide (C02) released to the atmosphere during these operations. CO2 capture and storage (CCS) is one of a portfolio of mitigation actions for that may be deployed to stabilise the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.

For CCS to be adopted on a scale sufficiently large to make an impact on global climate change requires the safe, secure storage of CO2 over geological time periods. The North Sea Basin has great potential for the permanent storage of CO2 in sub-seabed geological formations.

So in November 2005, the UK and Norway agreed to establish the North Sea Basin Task Force. In 2008, The Netherlands and Germany joined, taking its membership up to four countries.