Making CCS happen at scale for oil and gas companies

From oil and gas exploration through to permanent carbon storage.

Relay Geoscience is a specialist subsurface consultancy. We help companies drill fewer and more successful wells, and we apply the same disciplines, in the same basins, to make geological storage of CO₂ happen at scale.

Carbon storage → Exploration & development →

Our vision

Making CCS happen at scale for oil and gas companies.

Carbon capture and storage will only reach the scale net zero requires if the people who found and produced the hydrocarbons build the case for storing the carbon. We exist to build that case, technical and commercial, and to carry it from the first exploration well through to the depleted field that becomes the store.

New oil and gas development across a portfolio can and will be balanced by coeval CCS development alongside it. Ask us about our net zero field relay model.

Technical case

Containment that stands up to scrutiny

Structure, fault and top seal, geomechanics and dynamic simulation on the same model, so that the storage case is argued with the same rigour, and the same data, as the exploration case that preceded it.

Business case

Storage that pays its way

Capacity, injectivity and cost worked alongside production and decommissioning, so that a board, a regulator or a lender can see when and how a field's second life makes economic sense.

Field life

From exploration stage to depleted field

Storage screened at exploration, designed in at sanction, planned for before cessation of production, and delivered as the depleted field converts to a permanent store.

How we make it happen →Our tools in Relay Lab →

Why "Relay"

Our hydrocarbon to carbon capture storage journey.

In structural geology a relay ramp transfers displacement between two faults. We took the name because our work does the same thing: the expertise built over decades of oil and gas exploration and production is exactly the expertise that CO₂ storage depends on.

HydrocarbonMethane · CH₄

Carbon dioxideCO₂

At around 2 km depth (200 bar, 70 °C), 100 Bcf of gas fills about 15 million m³ of pore space. At the same pressure, supercritical CO₂ fills that same space with about 10 Mt, the equivalent of roughly 195 Bcf of CO₂ at the surface, because it is over five times denser than the methane it replaces.

Oil & gas

Better wells, better portfolios

Every unnecessary dry hole, sidetrack and appraisal well costs capital and carbon. We help exploration and development teams get structure, seal and pressure right before they commit.

Prospect de-risking: trap geometry, fault seal, top seal, charge timing
Structural review and re-ranking of prospect portfolios
New play concepts in mature and under-worked basins
Geomechanics for drilling, depletion and late-life operations

Exploration & development

Carbon storage

Containment you can defend

A storage permit rests on the same questions as a prospect, asked in the other direction: will the faults and the caprock hold when pressure goes up rather than down, and for how long?

Containment risk: fault reactivation, caprock integrity, legacy wells
Geomechanical modelling and safe injection pressure limits
Static and dynamic modelling: capacity, injectivity, plume and pressure
Depleted-field conversion, from cessation of production to store

Carbon storage

Our mission

Make the transition a subsurface success, not a subsurface surprise.

The world will use oil and gas for decades yet, and every credible pathway to net zero also needs CO₂ stored underground at the gigatonne scale. Both depend on people who understand how rock, faults and fluids behave under changing stress and pressure.

We are mission-led. We want the operators who know their reservoirs best to be the ones who turn them into stores, at the end of field life or alongside production, and we want the hydrocarbons that are still needed to be found with fewer wells. We measure ourselves on the quality of the technical work and on whether it changes a decision.

See where CCS stands today, in numbers

What we do

Specialist disciplines, integrated.

Structural geology

Fault framework interpretation, structural validation and restoration, fault-polygon-consistent mapping.

Geomechanics

In-situ stress and pore pressure, 1D to 3D mechanical earth models, depletion and injection stress paths.

Seal & containment

Fault seal, top seal capacity, fault reactivation and fracture risk under production and injection.

Reservoir engineering

Static and dynamic modelling, injectivity, pressure management, capacity and uncertainty.

Seismic processing & interpretation

Processing and interpretation through bespoke code, embedded in clean, simple-to-use desktop tools.

AI & data science

Analytics across well, seismic and production data, and AI used as an engineering tool, with the rules stated in geological terms and the code open to inspection.

All areas of expertise →

Carbon capture & storage

Storage is a containment problem first.

Capture and transport are engineering. Storage is geology, and the regulator's central question is whether the CO₂ will stay where it is put. That question is answered with structure, stress, seal and pressure, which is where we work.

The relay

The same physics, run in the other direction.

A fault that has held a gas column for millions of years has demonstrated a seal at one pressure state. Injection changes that state. Pore pressure rises, effective stress falls, and a fault that was stable through production can move towards failure. In a depleted field the stress path on re-pressurisation is not simply the depletion path reversed.

The method for quantifying this was developed in petroleum geomechanics. Members of our team were part of the University of Adelaide group that introduced ΔP, the pore pressure increase a fault can sustain before reactivation, as a measure of fault seal breach risk, and tested the prediction against CO₂ measured at surface above a natural CO₂ accumulation in the Otway Basin. That is the calculation at the heart of a storage containment assessment today.

For oil and gas companies there is a second relay. Operators hold the wells, the seismic, the production history and the pressure data for the fields best suited to early storage. Planning for storage before cessation of production, rather than after decommissioning, preserves data, infrastructure and optionality. In the EU it is also now an obligation: the Net-Zero Industry Act requires producers to contribute to 50 Mtpa of CO₂ injection capacity by 2030.

What we deliver

Technical work across the life of a store.

Screening

Site screening and ranking

Depleted fields and saline aquifers screened on capacity, injectivity and containment, using the data an operator already holds. Storage resources classified to the SPE SRMS.

Characterisation

Containment risk assessment

Fault and top seal integrity, fault reactivation potential and sustainable pressure limits, fracture and caprock failure, and legacy well exposure, brought into a single risk picture.

Characterisation

Geomechanical modelling

Stress and pore pressure determination from wells, 1D to 3D mechanical earth models, depletion and re-pressurisation stress paths, thermal effects of cold injection near the wellbore.

Modelling

Static and dynamic simulation

Structural and property models built for purpose, then plume migration, pressure build-up and dissipation, injectivity, well count and capacity under uncertainty.

Permitting

Permit and MMV support

Subsurface input to storage permit applications and to measurement, monitoring and verification plans: what to monitor, where, and what a deviation from the model would look like.

Assurance

Independent review

Peer review of storage studies for operators, partners and investors, and technical due diligence on storage licences and projects.

The questions we are asked

What a regulator, a partner or a lender wants to know.

Will the bounding faults hold at the planned injection pressure?Fault geometry, juxtaposition and fault rock properties, combined with the stress tensor and pore pressure, give a reactivation pressure for every fault segment, with its uncertainty. The answer sets the operating envelope.
How far can the reservoir be re-pressurised?Depletion changes the stress state, not always reversibly. We model the stress path through production and injection rather than assuming the original fracture gradient still applies.
Is the caprock a seal to CO₂, and is it intact?Capillary seal capacity for CO₂ differs from that for hydrocarbons. We assess seal capacity, thickness and continuity, and the risk of fracture or fault-related bypass.
How much can be injected, how fast, through how many wells?Dynamic simulation of injectivity, pressure interference and plume migration, tied to the geomechanical limits rather than run in isolation from them.
What happens at the wells?Legacy wells are often the dominant leakage risk in a depleted field. We map plume and pressure footprints against well locations and barrier status to prioritise remediation and monitoring.

CCS in numbers →Discuss a project →

Oil & gas

Structure is where the risk lives.

Understand structure, pressure, fluid migration and seal for the trap before taking the risk. We work with exploration and development teams as specialist support, as independent reviewers, and as a source of new ideas in areas that are thought to be understood.

Paul Lyon at an outcrop, pointing out the bedding and fault geometry in a layered sandstone cliff — Reading the structure in the field. The same questions asked of the outcrop are asked of the seismic: how the beds were laid down, how they were cut, and what moved when.

Structure first

The trap is a structural question before it is anything else.

Every prospect begins with a geometry: a fault, a fold, a closure, and a story of how it got there. We start from the rocks and the kinematics, in the field and in the seismic, and build the fault framework and the restorable model before any seal, pressure or volume is assigned to it. A trap whose structure cannot be restored is a trap whose risk cannot be stated.

Prospect de-risking

Trap definition and structural validation, fault seal and juxtaposition analysis, top seal and column height, reactivation and breach risk, and the timing of trap formation against charge. Delivered as a clear, auditable input to the chance of success.

Portfolio review

A consistent structural and seal review across a prospect inventory. Portfolios built over many years by many interpreters carry inconsistent assumptions. We re-rank on a common basis and show which prospects move, and why.

Post-well analysis

Dry-hole and discovery look-backs focused on what the structure and seal prediction got right and wrong, so that the lesson is carried into the next well rather than filed.

Seismic interpretation support

Fault framework and horizon interpretation in structurally complex settings, worked alongside restorable forward models so that the map is geologically defensible as it is built.

Development and late life

Compartmentalisation and fault transmissibility, depletion-induced stress change, fault reactivation and compaction risk, wellbore stability input for infill and sidetrack drilling.

Training

Trap and seal integrity, structural geology for interpreters and applied geomechanics, delivered in-house or through our established training partners.

New prospects, old areas

Mature basins are rarely as well understood as their well count suggests.

Most mature acreage was interpreted on older data, with the tools and concepts of its time, and the structural model has often been inherited rather than tested. Reprocessed seismic and a fresh structural eye regularly change the answer: a fault that was mapped as basement-rooted is detached; a trap dismissed as breached has a different leak mechanism than assumed; a growth package has been telling the fault history all along and nobody mapped the isopach.

Our approach is to re-examine the structural style first, build a simple three-dimensional kinematic model that has to reproduce the mapped horizons and the thickness variations, and let the misfits show where the interpretation and the geology diverge. In our recent work on the Penola Trough of the onshore Otway Basin, a province explored and produced for decades, this approach produced a new structural model for the main gas-field graben, with direct implications for fault seal risk on the surrounding traps.

Near-field, infrastructure-led opportunities found this way are the lowest-cost, lowest-carbon barrels available to an operator. They are also, often, tomorrow's storage sites.

Expertise

Deep in our core disciplines, joined up across them.

We are deliberately narrow. Our core team covers structural geology, geomechanics, seismic processing and reservoir engineering, and we draw on a network of recognised specialists for the tools and disciplines around them. Every deliverable is independently peer-reviewed before it reaches a client.

Seismic cube with the interpreted horizon map and fault picks

Geological model with depth map and faults

Static model: corner-point grid populated with porosity, with the reservoir layer outlined in red

Dynamic simulation: injector and producer, the flood beginning

Seismic interpretation
Geological model
Static model
Simulation

Structural geology

Fault framework and horizon interpretation on 2D and 3D seismic. Extensional, contractional, inverted and salt-influenced settings. Structural validation by section and map restoration and by kinematic forward modelling. Fault displacement analysis, growth history from isopachs and isochores, relay and linkage geometry, and mapping that honours fault polygons rather than interpolating across them.

Seismic processing and interpretation

Processing and interpretation delivered through bespoke code embedded in clean, simple-to-use desktop tools, added onto the standard products of Relay Lab. Interpretation is integrated on the processing side and on the structural side, with 2D and 3D depth processing where required, so that the seismic work and the structural model sit in one workflow rather than in separate applications.

Geomechanics

In-situ stress orientation and magnitude from image logs, breakouts, leak-off and extended leak-off tests, mini-fracs and regional data. Pore pressure and fracture gradient. One-dimensional mechanical earth models at wells through to three-dimensional models coupled to reservoir simulation. Stress paths under depletion and injection, compaction and subsidence, wellbore stability.

Fault reactivation

Slip tendency, dilation tendency and critical pore pressure perturbation (ΔP) mapped across three-dimensional fault surfaces in the present-day stress field. Sensitivity to fault rock strength, stress uncertainty and fault geometry. Applied to seal breach risk in exploration, to induced seismicity and to safe injection limits in storage.

Fault and top seal integrity

Juxtaposition (Allan) analysis, shale gouge ratio and other fault rock predictors, calibrated against known columns and pressure data. Top seal capillary capacity, mechanical integrity and the risk of hydraulic fracture. Seal capacity to CO₂ as distinct from hydrocarbons.

Containment risk

Integrated assessment of geological and man-made leakage pathways for CO₂ stores: faults, fractures, caprock, lateral migration and spill, and legacy wells. Risk registers and bow-ties that tie directly to the monitoring plan, consistent with the EU CCS Directive guidance and ISO 27914.

Static modelling

Fit-for-purpose structural and stratigraphic frameworks, facies and property modelling, and uncertainty workflows. Models built so that the fault framework, the geomechanical grid and the simulation grid remain consistent with each other.

Reservoir engineering and dynamic simulation

History-matched depletion models as the starting point for storage in depleted fields. CO₂ injection simulation: injectivity, pressure build-up and interference, plume migration, residual and dissolution trapping, brine production and pressure management. Capacity estimation and classification under SRMS.

Data science and AI

Python-based analytics across well, seismic-derived and production data. Large language models used as an engineering tool to build, test and revise forward models and interpretation utilities quickly, with the rules stated in geological terms and the code open to inspection.

How we assure quality

Peer review is built in, not bolted on.

We are a small firm and we are direct about it. Our answer is to be rigorous about what we take on, to bring in named subject-matter experts where a project needs a discipline or a software platform beyond the core team, and to have final models and reports independently reviewed before delivery. Clients see who did the work and who checked it.

Relay Lab^™

AI that does more than look impressive.

It uses real data to drive key decisions.

Relay Lab^™ is our research and development arm: we are developing a series of AI tools, designed for the desktop, that make decision-making more data-based, and we review and improve our methods continuously so that they stay at the cutting edge.

How we work

Alongside the subsurface software, not instead of it.

Our objective is not to replace or develop subsurface software; we rely on our partners for that, and where existing software does something well there is no reason to replace it. Our interest is in practical decision-making: how the major decisions can be made more data-driven, delivered as standard products.

Two Relay geoscientists at a desk: a seismic section on one screen and the Relay Lab Toolkit launchpad on the other — The Relay Lab Toolkit runs on the desktop, next to the interpretation software, and reads the same project.

Evidence

Tested on real data

Our methods are developed and tested on real data, not synthetic data, and their success is judged on empirical validation.

Trust

Auditable, and local where it needs to be

Every method is auditable, and the tools run locally where the data requires it.

Responsible and transparent

We employ AI responsibly and transparently: a clear usage policy, an audit trail of what was generated and what was checked, and human verification wherever a result matters.

Portfolio pipeline

Our tools let the data do the talking.

Each tool is built for the desktop: it imports the files you work with every day, in whatever format they are in, and exports to the standard applications, Excel and PowerPoint among them. Where the work is not commercially sensitive we make the effort to publish it and make it open file; the rest is client only, so contact us for more information.

RELAY_SFMOpen file

Structural forward modelling

Restorable 3D structural models built from explicit rules and scaled onto mapped horizons, so that several structural ideas can be tested while the interpretation is still open.

Platform

Interactive HTML 3D model
Runs in the browser, nothing to install
Exports to PowerPoint and Excel

Read the case study

RELAY_DHAClient only

Dry hole analysis

Too often a play is misunderstood because its dry holes were never analysed properly against the maps and the petroleum system as a whole. RELAY_DHA provides a multi-faceted analysis, built on our own skill-based extraction methods and data classification schemes, so that every well is read against the maps and the petroleum system it tested. Unique, Relay-assembled standardised templates speed up the workflow, so that the user is analysing data from the beginning.

Platform

Desktop tool, runs locally
Interactive HTML report
Exports to Excel and PowerPoint

RELAY_NZFClient only

Net zero field scoping

Can a gas field put back what it burns? Production, the storage relay, the tonne-for-tonne balance and the economics of a carbon-balanced development, worked from one set of assumptions.

Platform

Interactive HTML model
Runs locally on the desktop
Exports to Excel and PowerPoint

RELAY_WDVClient only

Well data visuals

The complete well record brought into one place, from core analysis, logs and tests, so that what each well actually proved is visible and comparable.

Platform

Desktop tool, runs locally
Interactive HTML visuals
Exports to Excel and PowerPoint

RELAY_SPIClient only

Seismic processing & interpretation

Processing and interpretation through bespoke code, embedded in clean, simple-to-use desktop tools and added onto the standard products. Interpretation is integrated on the processing side and on the structural side, with 2D and 3D depth processing where required.

Platform

Desktop tool, runs locally
Bespoke code, embedded
Exports to Excel and PowerPoint

RELAY_YOUOn request

Your own tool

A method you need that does not exist yet, built the Relay way: scoped with you, developed and tested on your data, auditable, and running where your data has to stay. Want us to build you something? Get in touch.

Platform

Scoped and built with you
Desktop or browser, as the data requires
Exports to Excel and PowerPoint

Get in touch

← Relay Lab RELAY_SFM · Open file

Structural ideas, built and tested in 3D on real data.

Structural forward modelling is where we put large language models to work experimentally: subsurface problems modelled conceptually in three dimensions, on the fly, and checked against the data. Subsurface integration only truly works when we are all on the same page.

Start here · work the model

A model you can drive.

Drag to orbit, scroll to zoom, and run the extension slider to grow the fault, the rollover and the crestal collapse graben. This is the model the case study below is built on; it runs in the browser with nothing to install.

The model

Arcuate listric fault with a crestal collapse graben

The model the case study is built on. Run the extension slider, cut dip and strike sections through the block, and watch the growth wedge and the graben appear together on the isochore map.

Restorable by construction · syn-rift isochore on the top surfaceOpen full screen

Case study · Katnook Graben, Penola Trough, Otway Basin

Naturally occurring CO₂ within a gas field province: the Katnook Graben, South Australia.

The Katnook Graben hosts the main gas fields of the onshore Otway Basin alongside naturally occurring CO₂, which makes it a perfect natural laboratory for how both hydrocarbons and CO₂ are trapped, and how they leak. Mapped and drilled for decades, it has long been read as bounded by basement-rooted faults. A simple restorable model, built as an experiment, offers a different structural model for an old area.

Depth structure map of the base Laira Formation over the Katnook Graben, with the Pyrus and Ladbroke Grove faults, the approximate extents of the fields and the hangingwall edge of the Hungerford/Kalangadoo listric fault system — The Katnook Graben on the rollover limb of the Hungerford/Kalangadoo listric fault system, with the approximate extents of the fields.

The question

Do the graben faults reach basement?

The graben sits 16 km into the hangingwall of a listric fault with some 13 km of slip, 5 km wide between the Pyrus and Ladbroke Grove faults. Katnook and Redman are full to spill inside it; Ladbroke Grove holds a live column on the flank and Pyrus is breached. Whether the bounding faults root into basement or detach in the cover bears directly on which traps hold.

The method

A 3D kinematic model is specified in words and built from four rules: fault-parallel flow, slip decaying to the fault tips, syn-rift growth to a datum, and a crestal collapse graben wherever the hangingwall cannot be carried over the bend in the fault. It is then scaled onto mapped horizons, with the fault shape, slip, trace and graben geometry taken from the data.

The result

No basement fault is needed.

The model reproduces the mapped thickness of the growth interval along dip, including its step into the graben, and the published fault line to within 0.3 km over the 9 km on which it is imaged. The Pyrus and Ladbroke Grove faults are best read as a conjugate pair detached within the sedimentary fill above the master fault, a consequence of rollover rather than of a basement fault beneath them. This has a direct consequence for fault seal integrity risk across the area, and for the understanding of charge, for both hydrocarbons and CO₂.

116 mmisfit of the growth interval over 1.2 km of relief

9 linesacross the area, 85 to 145 m on every one

9.5 kmdetachment below the top Crayfish Group

0basement faults required beneath the graben

Mapped isopach of the base Laira to top Crayfish interval over the Katnook Graben beside the modelled isopach of the same interval at the same scale — Mapped (left) and modelled (right) thickness of the base Laira to top Crayfish growth interval, in metres.

Oil & gas

Trap, timing and fault seal

Structural validation while the horizons are still being picked, not after the map is finished
Palaeostructure at any stage, so the trap at the time of charge is inspected rather than assumed
Crestal collapse as an assessable risk: the graben segments the structure and sets the juxtapositions on the flank closures
At Katnook, the Pyrus breach stands on juxtaposition and reactivation, not on basement linkage

Carbon storage

Containment, asked the other way round

Ladbroke Grove has held magmatic CO₂ since the Pleistocene; the question a storage permit asks of a bounding fault is how it formed, how deep it goes and what it connects to
What matters on a crestal collapse graben is the reactivation potential and juxtaposition of its faults in the present-day stress field, not their depth of origin
One restorable geometry carries into the fault seal, geomechanical and simulation work, so the containment case and the structural case are the same model

Read the work

The paper and the structural rules module behind it.

Lyon, P.J. and Boult, P.J. (2026). Integrating rapid 3D structural validation into interpretation: forward modelling of the Katnook Graben, Otway Basin. EarthArXiv preprint, 24 October 2026, doi.org/10.31223/X5580Q. The structural rules are released as a standalone Python module, archived on Zenodo and available on request.

Bring us a structure to test

CCS in numbers · updated October 2026

Geological storage of CO₂ is proven at industrial scale and still a rounding error against what net zero requires. This page tracks where the world, and Europe in particular, stands. Every figure is sourced and dated below.

400+ MtCO₂ stored underground worldwide since 1996Global CCS Institute, October 2026 · 383 Mt to end 2024 per the London Register, 2025

113commercial CCS facilities in operation, more than four times the 2021 countGlobal CCS Institute, Global Status of CCS 2026, 20 October 2026

734facilities in the global pipeline, 513 Mtpa of capture capacityGlobal CCS Institute, 2025 status report (data to July 2025)

≈1Gt/yrcaptured and stored by 2030 in the IEA Net Zero scenarioIEA Net Zero Roadmap, 2023 update

The global picture

Thirty-five key storage projects. Circle area is proportional to published capacity in Mtpa. Select a project for detail.

Capacities are nameplate capture or injection capacity as published by operators, the Global CCS Institute and the IEA; actual injection is often lower (see Gorgon, Sleipner). Locations are approximate. CO₂-EOR projects are included where they report stored volumes.

View all projects as a table

The gap to net zero

If every facility in the 2025 pipeline were built, at every stage of development, global capture capacity would reach roughly half of what the IEA's Net Zero scenario requires by 2030. The 2026 status report expects operating capture capacity to pass 100 Mtpa only once the projects now under construction come on stream.

The constraint is increasingly storage: characterised, permitted pore space with a defensible containment case.

Where the 383 Mt went

Cumulative CO₂ stored by project, to the end of 2024 unless stated; the Global CCS Institute puts the running total above 400 Mt by October 2026. A handful of large CO₂-EOR and gas-processing projects in the Americas account for most of it. Dedicated saline aquifer storage, the model for most future projects, is still a small share.

Sleipner, the project that started it all in 1996, has stored about 19 Mt.

Europe

50 million tonnes a year by 2030, in law.

The EU Net-Zero Industry Act (Regulation 2024/1735) sets a binding Union target of 50 Mtpa of CO₂ injection capacity by 2030, in storage sites permitted under the CCS Directive, and places the obligation on 44 oil and gas producers in proportion to their 2020–2023 EU production. Permitted capacity in the EU today is about a tenth of that.

Norway, Iceland and the UK are shown for context. Storage outside the EU does not count towards the NZIA target.

Mtpa of injection capacity expected by 2030, by source. "Permitted" is the Commission's March 2026 figure (3.5 Mtpa: Porthos, Prinos, Greensand) plus the Aramis K14-FA/FC permit of May 2026. Operating today: Greensand (0.4 Mtpa, opened 18 September 2026, first CO₂ from Danish biomethane) and the Ravenna pilot.

Who carries the obligation

Contributions are allocated to producers, and so fall by country of production. The Netherlands and Romania together carry almost half of the EU target. Romania holds 20.5% of the obligation against roughly 3% of EU industrial emissions, which makes the Black Sea region one of the most consequential, and least developed, storage provinces in Europe.

The trajectory after 2030

The EU Industrial Carbon Management Strategy sets out what follows: about 280 Mtpa of CO₂ captured by 2040 and about 450 Mtpa by 2050. Europe's theoretical storage resource is not the limit. Appraised, permitted, bankable capacity is.

50 Mtpa

injection capacity by 2030 (NZIA, binding)

≈280 Mtpa

captured by 2040 (ICM Strategy)

≈450 Mtpa

captured by 2050 (ICM Strategy)

>80 Gt

theoretical storage resource, Norwegian shelf

≤78 Gt

theoretical storage resource, UK shelf

≈500 Gt

theoretical, unrisked, across 27 European countries

Sources and notes

Global CCS Institute, Global Status of CCS 2026, published 20 October 2026: 113 commercial facilities in operation, more than 400 Mt stored since 1996, the Americas at 48 Mtpa of operating capture capacity, Europe's development pipeline up to 141 Mtpa. The full capacity breakdown by stage is taken from the 2025 report (data to July 2025) until the 2026 tables are published.
London Register of Subsurface CO₂ Storage, 2025 annual report (Imperial College London and partners). Cumulative stored volumes by project, 1996–2024. Includes CO₂-EOR projects that report storage; some volumes are nameplate-based estimates.
IEA, Net Zero Roadmap 2023 update and CCUS Projects Database commentary (2024–2026). The IEA counts operating capacity at just over 50 Mtpa on a narrower definition than the Global CCS Institute.
European Commission, COM(2026) 252, 28 May 2026: progress report on the NZIA injection capacity target. Permitted capacity, permit applications, producers' plans (29 Mtpa) and Member State reports (33.1 Mtpa).
Regulation (EU) 2024/1735 (Net-Zero Industry Act), Articles 20–23; Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/1477 and Decision (EU) 2025/1479 on obligated entities and contributions.
Clean Air Task Force (June 2026) and Bellona, Article 23 Watch 2026: independent assessments of about 43 Mtpa achievable by 2030.
European Commission, Industrial Carbon Management Strategy, COM(2024) 62. The 2040 and 2050 figures are capture volumes, for storage and utilisation.
Storage resource: Norwegian Offshore Directorate CO₂ Storage Atlas; UK NSTA / CO2Stored; GEUS for CATF (2021) after the EU CO2StoP study. All are theoretical, unrisked estimates.
Updates to October 2026: Yara Sluiskil–Northern Lights chain (Yara, 7 September 2026); Greensand opening (INEOS, 18 September 2026); ExxonMobil / Nucor Convent start-up (ExxonMobil, September 2026); Stratos commissioning delay (May 2026); Global CCS Institute 2026 status report (20 October 2026).
Project details from operator announcements, the NSTA, the Norwegian Offshore Directorate and national authorities. Capture capacity, injection capacity and cumulative stored volume are different quantities and are not summed on this page.

People

A small core team and a network of recognised specialists.

Clients work directly with the people doing the technical work. Around the core team we bring in named experts for specialist tools and disciplines, and for independent review.

Dr Paul Lyon

Director · Lead, Structure & Geomechanics

Paul is a structural geologist and geomechanics specialist with 20+ years in exploration and development, including roles with Shell in the Netherlands, Tullow Oil, OMV Petrom in Romania and, most recently, Saudi Aramco. His work has centred on trap definition, fault and top seal evaluation, fault reactivation risk and structural validation across extensional, contractional and inverted basins.

He holds a PhD in structural geology and geomechanics from the University of Adelaide, where he worked on fault seal and fault reactivation in the Otway Basin, including a test of geomechanical fault-reactivation predictions against CO₂ measured at surface above a natural CO₂ accumulation, and a BSc in Applied Geology from the University of Birmingham. He leads the firm's work on AI-assisted structural forward modelling.

Isabel Gutierrez

Founding Partner · Lead Reservoir Engineer

Isabel is a senior reservoir engineer with over 10 years of international experience across reservoir engineering, numerical simulation, field development planning and integrated reservoir management. She has worked with major oil and gas organisations and consulting teams on assets across Europe, Africa and South America, with expertise spanning reservoir simulation, history matching, production forecasting, reserves and resources evaluation, uncertainty analysis and development optimisation.

Her career has covered the full reservoir engineering workflow, from field development studies and dynamic modelling to supporting investment and development decisions. More recently she has extended her skill set into data science, machine learning and AI, combining her engineering and industry experience with data-driven approaches to complex problems.

Elizabeth Wong

Consultant Geologist · Development & Production Geology

Liz is a consultant geologist with over fifteen years of experience across small to large E&P operators, consultancies and investment banking in the UK. Her expertise lies in development and production geology and in reserves and resource evaluation, with experience supporting field development, well planning and workovers. She is an advanced Petrel static modeller.

Her time in investment banking means she delivers subsurface analysis that supports valuations, risking and commercial decision-making. Recently she has worked on helium exploration projects, building geological and Petrel static models to support volumetric and resource estimates.

Simon Evans

Lead Geophysicist · Seismic Processing Specialist

Simon is a processing geophysicist with over 25 years of international land, OBN and marine experience, specialising in near-surface modelling, challenging imaging environments, PSTM imaging and depth processing. He has worked in both oil companies and service companies, most recently Saudi Aramco, and has published extensively on structural geology, seismic interpretation and seal analysis.

He has a strong academic foundation in geology, geophysics and rock mechanics, with an undergraduate degree from the University of Wales, a postgraduate degree from Imperial College London and a further degree in digital project management. An experienced project manager, he drives workflow optimisation, seismic QC and acquisition design, and brings clear technical communication to senior stakeholders across global exploration and development projects.

Ashley Lengenberg

Consultant, Well Engineering · Well Integrity Special Studies

Ashley is a senior operations and wellsite geologist with more than fifteen years of international experience across Australia, Azerbaijan, Vietnam, Indonesia and Russia. He specialises in well planning, geosteering, pore pressure analysis, MWD/LWD interpretation and operational risk management, including extended-reach, HPHT, managed-pressure and H₂S operations, and has led multi-platform geological teams.

He is a co-author of an SPWLA paper on real-time fault identification using ultra-deep azimuthal resistivity (UDAR) imaging.

Dr Peter Boult

Senior Advisor

Peter is a petroleum geologist and an internationally recognised authority on seals. He co-edited the AAPG Hedberg Series volume Evaluating Fault and Cap Rock Seals and the PESA Eastern Australasian Basins Symposium II volume, and has published extensively on the petroleum systems, seal capacity and subsurface plumbing of the Otway Basin.

Expert network

The right specialist, named, for each job.

No small consultancy covers everything, and we do not claim to. We work with an established network of independent experts and specialist firms in fault seal analysis and software, geophysics and quantitative interpretation, petrophysics, well integrity, and monitoring design.

Where a project calls for them, they are brought in by name, with roles and review responsibilities set out in the proposal.

Publications

Published research.

Research with Impact.

0 papers & chapters 0 citations 0 h-index

Indexed work of the team, each paper counted once, over more than thirty years. In AAPG Bulletin, Marine and Petroleum Geology, Journal of Structural Geology, Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, Geological Society of London Special Publications and others. Source: Semantic Scholar Academic Graph, October 2026.

Selected first-author publications

2026
Lyon, P.J. and Boult, P.J. Integrating rapid 3D structural validation into interpretation: forward modelling of the Katnook Graben, Otway Basin. EarthArXiv preprint, doi.org/10.31223/X5580Q.
Preprint · 24 Oct 2026
2007
Lyon, P.J., Boult, P.J., Hillis, R.R. and Bierbrauer, K. Basement controls on fault development in the Penola Trough, Otway Basin, and implications for fault-bounded hydrocarbon traps. Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, 54, 675–689.
Structure · fault seal
2005
Lyon, P.J., Boult, P.J., Hillis, R.R. and Mildren, S.D. Sealing by shale gouge and subsequent seal breach by reactivation: a case study of the Zema Prospect, Otway Basin. In: Boult, P. and Kaldi, J. (eds), Evaluating Fault and Cap Rock Seals. AAPG Hedberg Series 2.
Fault seal · reactivation
2005
Boult, P. and Kaldi, J. (eds). Evaluating Fault and Cap Rock Seals. AAPG Hedberg Series 2. American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Tulsa.
Edited volume · fault & cap rock seals
1998
Boult, P.J., Lanzilli, E., Michaelsen, B.H., McKirdy, D.M. and Ryan, M.J. A new model for the Hutton/Birkhead reservoir/seal couplet and the associated Birkhead-Hutton(!) petroleum system. APPEA Journal, 38, 724–744.
Petroleum systems · seal
1993
Boult, P.J. Membrane seal and tertiary migration pathways in the Bodalla South oilfield, Eromanga Basin, Australia. Marine and Petroleum Geology, 10, 3–13.
Membrane seal · migration

Contact

Get in touch.

Whether you want to drill fewer wells with greater success rates in exploration and production settings, or need integrated technical work and advice on building the CCS technical and commercial case, then be sure to get in touch. An initial conversation costs nothing.

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Emailpaul.lyon@relaygeoscience.com

Based in

Durham, United Kingdom

Working with clients worldwide.

Company

Relay Geoscience Ltd
Registered in England and Wales, company no. 17424960