RUEIL-MALMAISON, FRANCE -- (Marketwire) -- 01/02/13 -- In May 2012, the South African Government has officially endorsed a "Carbon Capture and Storage Roadmap" as part of the country's climate change mitigation strategy. Carbon Capture & Storage (in short CCS), is a promising technology for lowering the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of South Africa's coal intensive energy infrastructure. Two South African companies have decided to participate in the OCTAVIUS project which is dedicated to the demonstration of capture technologies.

This FP7 project supported by the European Commission organises a conference to be held in Midrand (near Johannesburg), South Africa on 13-15 February 2013, in order to exchange knowledge and reinforce EU/RSA collaborations on CCS.

South Africa has emitted 600 MtCO2 in 2010, but for this developing country emissions are growing substantially and envisaged to reach 1,800 MtCO2 in 2050 without any mitigation strategy (Source: SA long-term mitigation scenarios). President Jacob Zuma declared in 2009 in Copenhagen that "with financial and technological support from developed countries, South Africa will be able to reduce emissions by 34 % below business as usual by 2020 and 42 % by 2025". With an energy mix based at 90 % on coal, CCS appears among the technologies to be considered in order to reach these ambitious objectives in term of emissions reduction.

In May 2012, Performance Monitoring and Evaluation Minister Collins Chabane presented a roadmap endorsed by the South African Government estimating that Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) could reduce CO2 emissions from electricity generation plants, coal-to-liquids plants and cement manufacturing facilities by between "80 and 90 %".

The South African Centre for Carbon Capture & Storage (SACCCS) defines the following steps in a strategy aimed at commercial application of CCS in South Africa by 2025 (see http://www.sacccs.org.za/roadmap/):

2004 - Assessment of CCS potential in South Africa (Complete);
2010 - South African CCS Geological Storage Atlas (Complete);
2016 - CO2 Test Injection in South Africa (Under development);
2020 - South African CCS Demonstration;
2025 - Commercial deployment of CCS in South Africa.

In order to acquire knowledge on CCS technologies and carbon capture in particular, the two South African companies, the state-owned energy utility ESKOM and consultancy firm EcoMetrix Africa have joined the OCTAVIUS project as partners. OCTAVIUS is dedicated to the demonstration at industrial pilot plants of energy efficient CO2 capture processes. This FP7 project coordinated by IFPEN has started on 1st March 2012 for a five years duration.

Within OCTAVIUS, a EU/RSA conference will be organised in order to present the results of the project but also the results of other CCS projects in Europe and South Africa. It will be an excellent occasion to create synergies on CCS between R&D organisations and industry from Europe and South Africa.This conference will take place on 13-15 February at ESKOM's Academy of Learning in Midrand (between Johannesburg and Pretoria). Final programme of the OCTAVIUS conference and registration procedure are now available on the project Website: www.octavius-co2.eu