Storage Potential Evaluation of Eastern Mediterranean Area as Final Step of the Full Chain Assessment

The last step of the CCUS full chain is represented by geological storage, when the CO2 is injected, via injection wells, into the deep sub-surface at a carefully selected site (such as a saline aquifer or a depleted oil/gas field). This work describes the methodology adopted by the AURORA project (https://aurora-heu.eu/) to select suitable storage sites for the CO2 source plants of the project, located in the Mediterranean area. The selection will be based on a comprehensive set of criteria that has been extensively described in numerous publications, tested in various projects, and adopted by the CO2 storage atlas of several European countries (as Norway and UK) (Riis & Halland, 2014; Halland et al., 2014; https://www.co2stored.co.uk/home/index); results will be compared to the previous calculation and evaluation performed for the same areas. The presented work has the aim to review the main strategies adopted for site selection and evaluation by previous projects, describes the geological areas suitable for storage for the Aurora project and their potential, and summarizes the methodology that will be used for evaluation (ranking criteria). Considering that storage wasn’t included in the LCA provided by the AURORA project, further goals will be to evaluate criteria for the commercial maturity of the sites.