Owner's engineer discipline. Vendor-neutral selection. Project management rigour.
The gap between a positive Final Investment Decision and a successfully operating CCUS project is where most projects fail. Technology licensing disputes, EPC contractor selection errors, supply chain failures, integration problems between capture, compression, transport, and injection systems, and inadequate owner's engineer oversight — these execution failures are responsible for cost overruns and schedule delays that have damaged the reputation of CCUS projects globally. NCM's Execution & Vendors service is designed to prevent these failures through the discipline of experienced project ownership.
Our execution team draws directly on the operational lessons of the world's landmark CCUS projects. Gorgon in Australia — the world's largest CCUS project by storage volume — demonstrated the criticality of subsurface integration management and the risks of inadequate well integrity monitoring. Porthos in the Netherlands illustrated how shared infrastructure EPC management requires specific commercial and contractual disciplines not present in single-owner projects. Net Zero Teesside showed how multi-emitter cluster capture requires an independent system operator function that balances the competing interests of individual project developers.
NCM provides the Owner's Engineer function — acting as the client's technical representative throughout design, procurement, construction, and commissioning — as well as direct vendor selection advisory and technology licensing negotiation support. Our access to global CCUS supply chain intelligence means we know which EPC contractors have the relevant capability, which technology licensors will negotiate on royalty structures, and where the critical supply chain constraints lie for Indian project delivery timelines.
Gorgon's experience — a USD 54 billion LNG project with integrated CCS — provided the industry with its most comprehensive lesson in CCUS project execution complexity. The injection system underperformance in Gorgon's early operational years, caused by unexpectedly high reservoir pressure and water disposal challenges, resulted in significant shortfalls against injection targets. The lesson was clear: subsurface integration must be managed with the same rigour as surface facilities, and the Owner's Engineer function must have genuine subsurface expertise, not just surface engineering capability.
Norway's Northern Lights project — the world's first open-access CO₂ transport and storage infrastructure — provided critical lessons in how to structure multi-shipper commercial frameworks, handle liability allocation for different CO₂ quality specifications from different industrial sources, and manage the interface between capture project developers and shared infrastructure operators. These commercial and contractual disciplines are directly applicable to India's emerging industrial cluster CCUS models.
The UK's Net Zero Teesside execution approach demonstrated how Government can act as an enabler rather than an operator — providing revenue support through a Dispatchable Power Agreement and Carbon Capture Contract while leaving execution risk with experienced industrial developers. This model has significant implications for how India structures its public-private partnership framework for large-scale CCUS execution.
India has significant latent capability in CCUS execution that is not yet fully mobilised. India's major EPC contractors — L&T, BHEL, Tecnimont, and Tata Projects — have the project management and civil construction capability for large industrial CCUS installations but require access to CCUS-specific process design expertise, proprietary capture equipment, and subsurface engineering capability that currently resides predominantly in Australia, Norway, and the UK.
NCM's execution advisory identifies the optimal split between Indian and international EPC capability for each project — maximising domestic content under India's Make in India requirements while accessing the specialist CCUS expertise that exists only in a small number of global engineering firms. We facilitate technology transfer arrangements that build Indian capability over time, reducing dependence on international execution capacity.
Critical CCUS equipment — amine contactors, structured packing, CO₂ compressors, injection wellheads, and downhole monitoring systems — currently has very limited manufacturing presence in India. NCM's supply chain advisory identifies which equipment categories are feasible for Indian manufacturing within the CCUS deployment timeline and which require international procurement, and develops supply chain strategies that manage both lead time and cost risk.
For India's first CCUS projects — which will be pilot or demonstration scale — NCM recommends a structured approach to technology procurement that builds in vendor competition, protects the client's commercial position in subsequent full-scale contracts, and avoids the technology lock-in that has created problems in other jurisdictions where first-mover projects accepted overly restrictive licensing terms.
Whether you are a government body seeking policy advice, an industrial company facing CBAM exposure, or an investor seeking CCUS project opportunities — our team is ready to engage.