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Most industrial decarbonisation plans start the same way: a net-zero target, a strategy document and a list of promising technologies. The harder question is what happens next, when capture units, pipelines, storage sites and commercial agreements have to exist as real, funded and operating assets. Carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) shows this gap more clearly than any other pathway, because no single company can deliver it alone.
CCUS is not one project. It is a chain of capture, transport and storage or utilisation, and each link has its own owner, risk profile and economics. A capture plant is worthless without a pipeline, and a pipeline is worthless without a storage site that is ready to receive CO₂. Projects tend to stall at three points:
The projects that move forward usually share three traits: a coordinating authority, shared infrastructure and a first cluster of committed emitters.
Oman offers a useful example because it has treated CCUS as a coordinated value chain rather than a series of separate pilots. It is built around industrial hubs.
OQ Gas Networks (OQGN) has set out a national CO₂ pipeline network to anchor three major CCUS ecosystems. In its design, the Northern ecosystem is meant to decarbonise the Sohar Industrial Area, Oman’s largest emissions cluster, and nearby regions such as Ibri, with an estimated 300-km pipeline to storage or utilisation sites. The Central ecosystem would serve Duqm, with potential storage in Block 6, Oman’s largest oil concession, over roughly 200 km. The Southern ecosystem would link Salalah to southern Block 6 storage sites within PDO’s concession.
The institutional set-up is what makes this a strategy-to-operations story. Oman’s Ministry of Energy and Minerals has led the effort, with roles divided across the chain: CO₂ capture led by Oxy, transport by OQGN, utilisation overseen by the Ministry, storage directed by Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), and blue products and synthetic fuels handled by Shell. The Ministry has also given Trailblazer Project status to three commercial-scale CCUS projects to enable first movers.
Specific emitters are being identified too. OQGN has named the Ibri Power Project as a promising candidate for carbon capture in partnership with Oxy Oman, and Oxy has described plans for transporting captured CO₂ to its production assets for enhanced oil recovery. This pairs an emitter, a transport operator and a storage or utilisation outlet. The effort also carries a national target. Oman’s net-zero strategy calls for CCUS to contribute 15% of carbon abatement by 2050.
The project is still moving from planning toward investment, which is the stage where many projects get stuck. As of March 2026, OQGN said the Northern ecosystem was in advanced stages of feasibility, with clarity on whether a final investment decision can be made hoped for by the end of 2026. It was prioritising that ecosystem because of clear demand there, while the Central and Southern opportunities were still evolving. The government and the Oman Net-Zero Center are also weighing regulations, in the form of incentives and taxes, which will shape the economics for emitters.
Moving from strategy to operations is mostly an exercise in coordination, financing and policy, and the engineering follows once those pieces are in place. Oman’s experience in the coming months, particularly any investment decision on the Northern hub, will show how well that model works in practice.
