Underground carbon storage hits record 43.6 million tons as US leads global charge

Global geological carbon dioxide (CO₂) storage hit a record 48.1 million US tons (43.6 million metric tons) in 2024, according to a new report by researchers at the Imperial College London.

The 2026 Annual Report from the London Register of Subsurface CO₂ Storage covered 70 projects across 17 countries on six continents, providing one of the most comprehensive records of global geological CO₂ storage.

The report also added that 464.8 million US tons of CO₂ have been stored underground since 1996.

“Our latest report shows that geological CO₂ storage has become a global enterprise, with annual reported storage more than doubling between 2016 and 2024,” Samuel Krevor, director of the Register at Imperial College London, told Phys.org.

“The consistency of these operations, and the fact that new countries and projects continue to join the Register, shows that geological storage is demonstrated as a large-scale mitigation technology.”

US and Brazil lead global CO₂ storage

Geological carbon storage involves capturing CO₂ from industrial operations, power generation, or the atmosphere and injecting it into underground rock formations, where it can remain trapped for thousands of years.

According to the London Register of Subsurface CO₂ Storage, annual storage increased from 23.1 million US tons in 2016 to 48.1 million US tons in 2024.

The United States reported the most projects in 2024, with 23 projects collectively storing 22.3 million US tons of CO₂.

However, Brazil’s Petrobras Santos Basin Pre-Salt Oil Field was the world’s largest individual project globally, reporting 15.7 million US tons, approximately one-third of the global total.

China reported 1.9 million US tons in 2024, with contributions from the Shengli Oilfield and the newly included Daqing Aonan Oilfield. Australia contributed 1.9 million US tons. New Zealand and Italy entered the register for the first time.

“Where the sources of CO₂ today are dominated by industrial capture, removals from the atmosphere are projected to emerge as the leading technology using geological storage by mid-century,” added Krevor.

Research calls for expanded underground CO₂ storage

Figures from 2025 show 39.9 million US tons of reported storage from 29 projects across 12 countries. However, the researchers added the data was incomplete.

Brazil’s Petrobras Santos Basin project reported 21.6 million US tons for 2025, compared to 15.7 million in 2024.

The researchers emphasized that expanding underground CO₂ storage will be essential to meet international climate goals. To meet the 1.5°C (or 2.7°F as a temperature increase) target set out in the Paris Agreement, geological storage must scale to 1.1 billion US tons of CO₂ storage or more per year by 2050.

The report also revised previously published storage figures. Cumulative storage through 2023 fell from 387.4 million to 377.0 million US tons, a 2.7 percent reduction.

The annual figure for 2023 was also revised downward from 49.8 million to 46.0 million US tons.

“These revisions reflect the latest evidence, and we have been explicit in the report about where the accounting for reported storage remains uncertain,” said Dr. Xiaowei Gao, executive director of the Register at Imperial College London.

“That transparency matters if geological CO₂ storage is to earn the confidence of policymakers and investors.”

Source: https://interestingengineering.com/science/global-underground-carbon-dioxide-storage