Riviera Maritime Media’s CO2 Shipping & Terminals conference filled the Tower Hotel with those building the value chain: emitters, shipowners, ports, class societies, regulators, service providers and the supply chain. And it was clear industry mood has shifted versus 12 months ago. Or as one roundtable chair put it: “What stood out across the conference was the momentum. We’re no longer talking about potential; we’re talking about readiness, repeatability and scaling with confidence.”

The pitch has changed

The headline news came early. Northern Lights, the world’s first commercial CO2 storage service, is now almost a year into operations, with Phase 1 storing CO2 since August 2025 and Phase 2 racing toward 5 million tonnes a year by 2028. Commercial manager, Baris Dolek’s message was bullish: the ‘chicken-and-egg problem’ has been resolved, with capacity still open and more than 20 million tonnes under negotiation.

The UK’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and the Crown Estate walked the room through £21.7bn of committed Track-1 funding, with HyNet and the East Coast Cluster now in construction and first injection expected from end-2028. Britain’s 78 billion tonnes of theoretical storage, they argued, isn’t just a domestic asset. It’s an export business waiting for European emitters to plug into.

Storage isn’t the bottleneck

Endrava’s Eric Rambech punctured the line that ‘storage is the bottleneck’. His data showed roughly 19 mtpa of storage past final investment decision against only 10 mtpa of capture committed to it. The real gap isn’t capacity. It’s timing. Capture, transport and storage are moving on different clocks. A live audience poll agreed: seven in ten delegates said the business case, not the geology, is the true constraint.

The ships are real now

The technical stream made it tangible. Lloyd’s Register and Babcock LGE detailed the gas trials of Active, the world’s first large-scale low-pressure CO2 carrier. This included a candid account of a solid-CO2 blockage and the recovery process they engineered to beat it. Honest, useful and exactly the kind of operational intelligence you can’t Google. Bureau Veritas showcased Project Greensand’s pioneering DP2 injection carrier; Shell and DNV made the commercial case for floating storage and injection units. The kit exists. And it is sailing.

The fight worth watching

The standardisation debate, or low pressure versus medium – 97% purity versus 99% arguments – stayed unresolved. And the conference heard that is an opportunity. Capital Gas’s William Bjorn explained why he hedged with multi-gas optionality. Carbon Ridge argued purity can be managed downstream, not on every ship. Whoever shapes the emerging standard shapes the market.

A format built to work the room

After the morning plenary the conference split into parallel streams. Commercial corridors and regulatory compliance was addressed in the main room. Technical operations and fleet performance next door. Delegates chose their depth: engineers went deep on cargo handling and phase behaviour while commercial teams pressed on offtake, corridors and cross-chain risk. Two conferences for the price of one.

The roundtables earned their keep

Then came the roundtable session. Six tables, six subject specialists, six candid debates with no slides to hide behind. Each moderator closed with a 90-second summary to the whole gathering in order that delegates could sit at one table but walk away with the headlines from all six.

The verdict from the “Why haven’t we reached FID?” table was that risk allocation, contract structure and long-term certainty are the blockers. The purity table, only half-joking, ‘landed’ on a workable 98.7% spec and warned that fragmenting standards project-by-project will cost everyone. The cross-border table seized on a UK-Belgium MOU signed on the very morning of the conference and flagged ‘social acceptance’ as the risk nobody’s planning for yet. Another table made the case for shipping CO2 as dry ice. Proof a young industry still has room to think radically.

The networking breaks and evening receptions were busy with offtake conversations, discussions on a regulatory framework signalled for November and deal-making. The shared view was that this is the event to form and consolidate partnerships in order to own first-mover advantage when it lands.

Miss this conference next year, and you won’t just miss the news. You’ll miss the negotiations.

Riviera’s year-round coverage of CO2 shipping and terminals includes the Ammonia & CO2 Shipping & Terminals Summit. Taking place on the afternoon of Gastech 2026 on 14 September, this focused half-day event offers participants the opportunity to examine the Asia Pacific ammonia and CO2 shipping value chain in the depth it demands. The briefing will be followed by a networking reception. For more information, please contact bill.cochrane@rivieramm.com