The main storage-related challenges for accelerated deployment of CCS are capacity, confidence and cost. Pre-ACT is an industry-driven research project with a strong focus on improving strategies for monitoring and management of pore pressure distribution to address these challenges.

Pre-ACT will develop pressure-driven decision support protocols (Pre-ACT Protocols) which will be a cost-efficient system for reservoir monitoring that helps the operator maximize CO₂ storage capacity and quickly turn monitoring data into corrective action.

Pre-ACT has secured access to a wide and relevant set of monitoring data from key demonstration sites across the world to calibrate, verify and demonstrate the value of the pressure-driven decision support protocols created in Pre-ACT for specific challenges. The industrial partners in Pre-ACT (Statoil, TOTAL, Shell and TAQA) will be instrumental in securing the relevance and applicability of the tools and methodologies developed in the project and will bring their operational experience and perspective.

Pre-ACT comprises five technical work packages, designed to build the different elements in the pressure driven decision support protocols. WP1 deals with the development and demonstration of methods to model pressure build-up and distribution. WP2 and WP3 deal with development and demonstration of a modelling-monitoring loop for conformance assessment. Based on the compilation of a unique archive of existing and new data sets from relevant pilot and field sites, WP4 will derive recommendations for decision making procedures. In WP5, North Sea case studies will be carried out, demonstrating the value of the protocols developed in Pre-ACT. The project also includes first of a kind experiments at the ECCSEL Svelvik site.

Five countries with strong commitment to CCS are represented in the consortium: Norway, Germany, The Netherlands, UK and France. In addition, Pre-ACT has established a solid cooperation with US and Australia.