On March 18, 2026, London will host the first CCS Forum organized by World Pipelines,<\/a> an event marking a significant shift in the debate on carbon capture and storage (CCS) in the UK.<\/p>\n\n Until now, public conversation has been dominated by political ambition and major industrial announcements. This forum, however, descends to the technical ground where the battle is truly won or lost: the design, construction, and operation of CO\u2082 pipeline networks. <\/p>\n\n The timing is no coincidence. Track 1 industrial clusters\u2014the British government’s first priority CCS projects\u2014have passed financial close and are now entering the construction phase. It is precisely in this transition where engineering decisions stop being theoretical and become steel, welds, and miles of underground pipeline. <\/p>\n\n The forum program has been structured around four axes that industry engineers consider critical: design of supercritical CO\u2082 pipelines, selection of materials resistant to corrosion and brittle fracture, long-term operational integrity, and planning for modular network expansion.<\/p>\n\n CO\u2082 transported in dense phase (supercritical state) behaves radically differently from natural gas. Its high density requires elevated operating pressures, while the presence of impurities such as H\u2082S, SOx, or water can trigger corrosion mechanisms<\/a> that render steel unusable in years, not decades. <\/p>\n\n Another aspect rarely discussed publicly, but central to operators, is the phenomenon of ‘running ductile fracture’ (RDF): a catastrophic failure that can travel hundreds of meters of pipeline in seconds if the material is not correctly specified for CO\u2082 conditions.<\/p>\n\n The most strategic aspect of the forum\u2014and what differentiates this event from a simple technical meeting\u2014is its focus on long-term network architecture. The UK is not building a CCS project; it is attempting to build a system. <\/p>\n\n The difference is crucial: a project is optimized for its current conditions, a system is designed to be expanded, interconnected, and adapted to new emission sources.<\/p>\n\n The decisions made today about pipeline diameter, location of compression stations, and interconnection nodes will determine whether the UK’s CO\u2082 pipeline network can scale economically over the next decade, or whether each new connection will require major works.<\/p>\n\n The question posed by the event itself summarizes it with technical precision and political urgency: how do we design today’s clusters to enable a resilient CO\u2082 network for tomorrow? The answer, to a large extent, will begin to be written on March 18 in London. <\/p>\n\nTechnical Challenges Defining the Success or Failure of British CCS<\/h2>\n\n
Designing Today the CO\u2082 Pipeline Network That Will Sustain Tomorrow’s Climate<\/h2>\n\n