PTTEP Approves Thailand’s First Carbon Capture and Storage Project at Arthit gas field, Targeting 1 Million Tonnes of CO2 per Year

PTTEP has cleared the path for Thailand’s first carbon capture and storage project at the Arthit gas field in the Gulf of Thailand, a milestone in the nation’s pursuit of a low‑carbon energy future. The project is designed to capture carbon dioxide produced during gas operations and store it underground in offshore reservoirs, marking a significant step toward strengthening Thailand’s capabilities in CCS technology and helping the country progress toward its net-zero ambitions. PTTEP’s leadership frames this development as a foundational move to demonstrate the viability of underground carbon storage and to scale CCS efforts across the Thai energy sector as the country balances its emissions with absorption by mid-century.

Background and Context for Thailand’s CCS Initiative

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a multi‑faceted technology suite designed to intercept carbon dioxide from large industrial sources, compress and transport it, and securely inject it into geological formations for permanent storage. In the context of Gulf of Thailand operations, CCS is contemplated as a means to minimize the carbon footprint of offshore gas production by preventing CO2 released during extraction, processing, and associated activities from entering the atmosphere. The Arthit project places Thailand at the forefront of CCS deployment in Southeast Asia, signaling a strategic shift toward using subsurface storage to curb greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining domestic energy security and economic activity.

Thailand’s climate strategy aligns CCS with broader policy objectives geared toward achieving net-zero emissions by 2065. This long‑range target shapes near‑term actions, funding commitments, and project prioritization across the energy sector. In this framework, the Arthit CCS project functions not only as a standalone engineering endeavor but as a pilot initiative whose outcomes are expected to influence national planning, regulatory standards, and future CCS undertakings in other Thai fields and industrial clusters. The government emphasizes that CCS can be a meaningful component of a portfolio of decarbonization measures, complementing efficiency improvements, fuel-switching, renewable energy expansion, and other emissions-reduction strategies.

The project traces its origins to 2021, when PTTEP and related stakeholders initiated the CCS program as part of their longer-term decarbonization roadmap. The technical concept places the storage site at substantial offshore depths, with the reservoir targeted for carbon storage at approximately 1,000 to 2,000 meters below the seabed. This depth range is typical for long‑term containment of CO2, leveraging geological formations that can retain fluids under high pressures over extended timeframes. The intended capacity is designed to store roughly 1 million tonnes of CO2 per year, representing a meaningful scale for a national CCS effort and a potential catalyst for broader industry adoption.

The Arthit facility is slated to commence operations in 2028, following a formal approval process completed in the preceding week. This timeline reflects the prudent planning, regulatory scrutiny, engineering design, safety analyses, and stakeholder consultation required for an offshore CCS installation of this magnitude. In support of the project, PTTEP intends to commit substantial financial resources, allocating around 10 billion baht each year to CCS technology investments over a five-year horizon. That level of funding underscores the scale of the undertaking and the government’s expectation that the project will help build domestic capacity in CCS design, operation, and monitoring, while also advancing national decarbonization goals.

An official from Thailand’s Energy Ministry, who chose to remain unnamed, highlighted the broader significance of the Arthit project. The official noted that the project could serve as a national prototype for underground carbon capture facilities, given the current absence of widespread, large‑scale CCS implementations by other organizations due to the complexities, specialized expertise requirements, and substantial upfront investment costs involved. This assessment frames Arthit as a learning platform to develop technical know-how, engineering standards, and governance mechanisms that can inform future CCS ventures across public and private sectors in Thailand.

From a policy perspective, the government recognizes PTTEP’s CCS venture as part of Thailand’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) Action Plan on Mitigation for 2021–2030. The NDC framework, consistent with the Paris Agreement, outlines how the country intends to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and guides sectoral plans, investment priorities, and capacity-building efforts. By incorporating CCS within the NDC, Thailand signals its commitment to deploying innovative decarbonization options alongside conventional approaches, aiming to strengthen resilience and long-term competitiveness in a low-carbon global economy.

Beyond Arthit, PTTEP has expressed interest in expanding CCS investigations to other regions within Thailand. The company has laid out leadership in a feasibility study for PTT Group’s Eastern Thailand CCS Hub initiative, part of the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) that encompasses portions of Chon Buri, Rayong, and Chachoengsao. This broader study envisions leveraging CCS technology and storage potential in the Gulf of Thailand to reduce emissions from PTT Group’s operational sites in Rayong and Chonburi as well as adjacent industrial clusters. The government views such initiatives as integral to national decarbonization and the strengthening of the country’s industrial base through advanced technology adoption.

In describing the strategic value of the Eastern Thailand CCS Hub, Montri Rawanchaikul, PTTEP’s chief executive, emphasized that the hub has the potential to contribute meaningfully to Thailand’s net-zero trajectory while also enhancing the nation’s long-term economic competitiveness. The emphasis is on a dual outcome: achieving substantial emissions reductions and maintaining or improving the competitiveness of Thai industries by integrating CCS into regional energy and industrial ecosystems. The broader PTT Group, of which PTTEP is a part, has established a clear emissions-reduction target, aiming to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 15% by 2030. This target situates CCS as a key instrument in the group’s strategy to align with national climate commitments.

The latest data from PTT Group’s Sustainability Strategy, Policy and Management report indicate that in 2024 the group emitted about 41.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e). This figure provides a reference point for the emissions‑reduction challenge faced by the group and highlights the role CCS could play in enabling significant decarbonization across its operations. Taken together, PTTEP’s Arthit CCS project, the Eastern Thailand CCS Hub feasibility study, and PTT Group’s broader decarbonization agenda illustrate Thailand’s proactive approach to CCS as a central pillar of its climate strategy and industrial development plans.

Project Details and Timeline at Arthit

The Arthit CCS initiative is anchored in the offshore context of the Gulf of Thailand, where the Arthit gas field is located and where the storage reservoir has been designed to receive CO2 from gas production operations. The technical design contemplates transporting captured CO2 to the storage site, injecting it into the reservoir, and maintaining monitoring systems to verify containment and track the CO2 plume over time. The objective is to achieve secure, long-term storage while enabling continued gas production with a reduced atmospheric footprint. The storage solution is described as a “reservoir” in depth ranges of 1,000 to 2,000 meters, highlighting the depth and geological conditions that are considered favorable for mineral trapping and long‑term containment.

The capacity target of 1 million tonnes of CO2 per year represents a substantial scale for a single offshore project of this type. Achieving this level of annual storage will require robust capture facilities at the gas field, reliable gas processing operations, and an integrated injection system. The project’s operational timeline envisions a start of CCS activities and storage operations in 2028, a date that follows the required permitting, engineering, and construction phases. The interim period between approval and commissioning will be used to finalize design details, construct and test injection wells, develop monitoring programs, and ensure safety and environmental compliance to international standards and local regulations.

Financial commitments accompanying the Arthit project reflect a long‑term, large-scale investment approach. PTTEP’s plan to allocate around 10 billion baht per year over a five-year span underscores the scale of technology deployment, systems integration, and workforce development involved. This funding supports not only the physical machinery and subsurface infrastructure but also the critical activities required to maintain the integrity of the storage reservoir, including seismic monitoring, well integrity testing, reservoir modeling, and ongoing data management. It also has implications for procurement, local supplier engagement, and workforce training, as the project builds domestic capability in CCS operations and related disciplines.

A key point in the Arthit project timeline is the explicit linkage between the approval decision and subsequent operational readiness. The approval granted in the week preceding the article’s publication confirms that regulators and company leadership have accepted the project plan, safety case, and environmental impact considerations necessary to move forward. This milestone is framed as a preparatory step toward a fully functional CCS facility capable of capturing, transporting, and storing CO2 on an industrial scale. In communicating this milestone, PTTEP leadership and government officials have underscored the project’s role as a national prototype for underground carbon capture facilities, acknowledging the complexities involved and the investment required to overcome them.

The Arthit project also reflects Thailand’s broader policy mechanism under the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) framework, which positions CCS within a portfolio of measures designed to achieve national emissions reductions. The NDC Action Plan for 2021–2030 provides a structured pathway that aligns with the Paris Agreement’s objectives, indicating how the Arthit CCS project contributes to the country’s commitments. The government’s recognition of the project within this framework signals a policy environment supportive of CCS investments and the development of specialized capabilities that can be replicated in other regions and sectors as part of a national decarbonization roadmap.

In parallel with Arthit, PTTEP and the PTT Group are exploring opportunities for broader CCS deployment across Thailand. The Eastern Thailand CCS Hub study is a salient example of this strategic direction. The Eastern Economic Corridor—covering parts of Chon Buri, Rayong, and Chachoengsao—serves as a geographic focal point for integrating CCS into regional industrial activity. The emphasis is on reducing emissions from the PTT Group’s operational sites located in Rayong and Chonburi, as well as nearby industrial areas, by leveraging CCS capacity and the storage potential of the Gulf of Thailand. The potential for a coordinated network of CCS operations across multiple sites could yield economies of scale, shared technical expertise, and enhanced regulatory alignment.

Montri Rawanchaikul has emphasized the Eastern Thailand CCS Hub’s potential to advance the country’s net-zero objectives while also increasing Thailand’s long-term economic competitiveness. This reflects a broader policy aim to marry environmental objectives with economic development by fostering a domestic CCS ecosystem that can serve as a platform for technology transfer, training, and regional leadership. The PTT Group’s target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 15% by 2030 provides a concrete benchmark that CCS initiatives are expected to help meet. The group’s reported 2024 emissions figure of 41.4 MtCO2e provides context for the scale of the emissions-management challenge within which CCS activities are being pursued.

In sum, the Arthit project’s specifics—offshore storage depths, a capacity of 1 million tonnes per year, a 2028 operational target, and a five-year investment plan—are embedded within Thailand’s broader climate and industrial policy framework. The project serves as a testbed for technical feasibility, governance models, and economic viability, with the potential to catalyze additional CCS initiatives throughout the country and to reinforce the role of CCS in meeting national emissions targets and maintaining competitive industrial sectors in a decarbonizing global economy.

Government Policy and National Strategy

Thailand’s policy architecture for mitigating climate change and advancing CCS is anchored in a formal engagement with the NDC framework established under the Paris Agreement. The NDC Action Plan for Mitigation 2021–2030 specifies a suite of measures designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions and to advance the country’s climate commitments. The Arthit CCS project is positioned within this policy architecture as a tangible mechanism to realize emission reductions from the country’s gas production sector, applying cutting-edge technology to lower the carbon intensity of energy supply while maintaining reliable energy output. The government’s recognition of PTTEP’s CCS initiative within the NDC Action Plan signals a deliberate alignment of industry-level decarbonization with national-level climate targets, reinforcing the credibility of CCS as a legitimate instrument in the country’s broader strategy to achieve net-zero by 2065.

A key dimension of the policy framework is the emphasis on CCS as a national prototype. An official from the Energy Ministry, who asked for anonymity, described the Arthit project as a potential national prototype for underground carbon capture facilities. This framing acknowledges the complexity, specialized expertise requirement, and the sizeable up-front capital necessary to execute CCS projects at scale. The prototype status is not only about demonstrating technical viability but also about validating regulatory, safety, environmental, and economic models that could inform future CCS initiatives across other sectors and regions. The concept of a national prototype also implies a structured approach to knowledge sharing, standardization, and capacity-building that can accelerate learning curves for a broad ecosystem of stakeholders in Thailand’s CCS landscape.

In recognizing PTTEP’s CCS project as part of the NDC Action Plan, the government is signaling a policy preference for CCS investments that can deliver verifiable, auditable emissions reductions over defined time horizons. The NDC framework provides a basis for measuring progress, tracking performance against targets, and aligning CCS projects with other climate measures, such as energy efficiency improvements and the deployment of low-carbon technologies. The Paris Agreement’s broader objectives supply an international legitimacy to the Thai approach, reinforcing the rationale for pursuing CCS not only as a national priority but as part of a global response to climate change. The policy environment thus creates a supportive climate for public-private collaboration, where state agencies, energy producers, and technology providers work together to advance CCS capabilities and achieve shared decarbonization outcomes.

PTT Group’s broader CCS strategy also fits within national ambitions to expand Thailand’s energy and industrial backbone through the Eastern Economic Corridor. The Eastern Thailand CCS Hub feasibility study aims to consolidate CCS activities in a geographically strategic area that encompasses Chon Buri, Rayong, and Chachoengsao. By concentrating CCS development in this corridor, the government and the PTT Group intend to leverage existing industrial clusters, port facilities, and logistics networks to drive efficiency, reduce costs, and accelerate the deployment of capture, transport, and storage infrastructure. The EEC’s development plan provides a framework for coordinating land-use planning, permitting processes, and environmental monitoring in a way that supports CCS expansion while minimizing disruption to local communities and ecosystems.

From the policy perspective, the government’s stance is to position CCS as a driver of both climate mitigation and economic competitiveness. By highlighting the Eastern Thailand CCS Hub as a potential contributor to net-zero targets, policymakers are signaling that CCS can be integrated into strategic economic initiatives, including job creation, supply chain development, and regional development programs tied to the Eastern Economic Corridor. The government’s approach also acknowledges that CCS deployment requires a sustained financial commitment, technical skill-building, and robust regulatory oversight to ensure safety, environmental stewardship, and public trust. In this sense, Arthit and the Eastern Thailand CCS Hub serve as twin pillars of a broader national strategy to harness CCS capacity for climate action and economic resilience.

PTT Group’s CCS Strategy and Eastern Thailand Hub

PTT Group’s emissions-reduction ambitions drive a portion of the strategic rationale behind Arthit and related CCS initiatives. The group has articulated a target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 15% by 2030, a goal that places CCS squarely within the portfolio of technologies and practices the conglomerate must deploy to stay on a decarbonization trajectory. The Arthit project complements this broader objective by focusing on a practical, field-scale CCS application in a high-profile Thai offshore gas setting, thereby providing a real-world platform to refine capture, transport, and storage processes, as well as associated monitoring and verification methodologies.

In addition to Arthit, the PTT Group is pursuing a feasibility study for the Eastern Thailand CCS Hub within the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC). The study targets CCS deployment across parts of Chon Buri, Rayong, and Chachoengsao, with the aim of reducing emissions from the group’s operational sites in Rayong and Chonburi as well as from adjacent industrial areas. The hub concept leverages storage potential in the Gulf of Thailand to create a regional CCS network, offering the possibility of shared pipelines, centralized monitoring systems, and standardized operating procedures that could lower barriers to replication and scale. The hub is envisioned as a strategic asset that can contribute to national decarbonization while also reinforcing energy security and economic competitiveness for Thailand’s industrial clusters.

Montri Rawanchaikul’s remarks on the Eastern Thailand CCS Hub emphasize its potential to support Thailand’s net-zero ambitions and strengthen the nation’s long-term economic competitiveness. By linking emissions reductions to broader economic outcomes, the hub strategy frames CCS as a catalyst for growth, enabling Thai industries to operate within a lower-carbon framework while preserving the ability to compete in global markets that increasingly reward climate-resilient and low-emission operations. The 15% emissions reduction target by 2030 remains a central benchmark for measuring progress, with the 2024 emission figure for PTT Group—41.4 MtCO2e—serving as a baseline to assess the impact of CCS deployments alongside other decarbonization measures.

The Arthit project and the Eastern Thailand CCS Hub together illustrate a coordinated approach to CCS development within Thailand’s energy landscape. They reflect a policy and corporate strategy that prioritizes not only technical feasibility but also economic viability, capacity building, and regional development. The emphasis on a national prototype status indicates an intention to use Arthit as a learning platform that can be replicated and scaled across the country, while the Eastern Thailand Hub seeks to create practical value by integrating CCS into a regional industrial ecosystem. This dual approach signals a commitment to deploying CCS at multiple scales and in multiple contexts, with the potential to establish Thailand as a regional leader in carbon management technologies.

Economic Impacts and Investment Outlook

The financial framework surrounding PTTEP’s Arthit CCS project is anchored in substantial investment commitments designed to enable long-term decarbonization while supporting ongoing energy production activities. PTTEP’s plan to spend about 10 billion baht annually on CCS technology over a five-year period highlights the seriousness with which the company expects to approach capture, transport, storage, and monitoring. This funding is intended to cover the capital expenditures, operating costs, and capability-building needs required to bring a field-scale CCS installation from design to operation. The economic rationale for such a program includes anticipated cost reductions from learning-by-doing, shared infrastructure with other CCS initiatives, and the broader value of reducing carbon emissions intensity within Thailand’s gas sector.

From a macroeconomic perspective, the Arthit project has the potential to contribute to local and national economic development beyond direct project expenditures. A successful CCS demonstration could spur supplier development, create skilled employment opportunities, and foster technology transfer to Thai industry and research institutions. The project could also attract ancillary investment in related supply chains, such as CO2 capture equipment, compression technology, pipelines, and monitoring instrumentation. By establishing a domestic CCS capability base, Thailand could reduce its reliance on foreign expertise and equipment for future CCS deployments, creating spillover benefits across the energy and industrial sectors.

The Arthit CCS initiative also intersects with Thailand’s climate policy and financing landscape. As a government-aligned capital-intensive project, Arthit can influence subsequent policy design, regulatory frameworks, and potential funding mechanisms for CCS initiatives. This alignment could facilitate access to concessional financing or international climate finance channels for future projects, thereby reducing the perceived financial risk and enabling more aggressive scaling of CCS capacity if the technology proves technically sound and economically viable. The existence of a clearly defined investment plan—10 billion baht annually for five years—provides a measurable baseline against which the financial performance and environmental outcomes of the project can be assessed.

In parallel, the Eastern Thailand CCS Hub feasibility study operates within a broader economic development agenda for the EEC. If the hub progresses, it may unlock cross-sector opportunities, enabling near-term decarbonization in industrial clusters while enhancing Thailand’s attractiveness as a destination for investment in low‑carbon energy infrastructure. The combined effect of Arthit and the Eastern Thailand CCS Hub could yield a portfolio effect, where the lessons, technologies, and market mechanisms developed in one project inform the others, reducing risks and accelerating deployment across the country. The 15% emissions reduction target by 2030 set for PTT Group adds a clear performance incentive, aligning corporate reporting with national climate ambitions and guiding financial planning for CCS-related activities.

Technical Challenges and Risk Management

CCS projects, particularly at offshore scales like Arthit, confront a suite of technical and operational challenges that must be addressed to ensure safe, reliable, and durable storage of CO2. The explicit recognition of the complexities, expertise requirements, and high capital costs underscores the need for rigorous engineering, careful site characterization, and robust risk management. Among the principal technical considerations are reservoir integrity, leakage prevention, and the long-term stability of stored CO2. The storage reservoir’s depth and geological properties are critical to containment, and ongoing monitoring is essential to confirm that CO2 remains isolated from the surrounding formations and the overlying environment. The injection process itself must be carefully controlled to avoid pressure-induced fracturing of rock, which could create pathways for leakage or cause unintended geomechanical effects.

Monitoring and verification form a core component of CCS operations. The Arthit project will require comprehensive surveillance programs, including seismic surveys, well integrity tests, reservoir modeling, and routine data analysis. These activities support continuous assessment of injection performance, plume migration, and storage security, enabling timely decision-making in response to any anomalous conditions. The right balance of monitoring intensity, cost, and effectiveness will be essential to achieving credible, long-term containment while ensuring compliance with regulatory and environmental standards.

Regulatory and governance frameworks are integral to managing CCS risks. The government and industry participants must develop and enforce standards for site selection, permitting, operational safety, environmental protection, and post‑closure stewardship. In the Thai context, the Arthit project aligns with the NDC Action Plan and related climate policies, but its successful implementation will depend on a durable regulatory backbone that covers CO2 capture, transport, storage, and monitoring across the lifecycle of CCS projects. Stakeholder engagement, transparent reporting, and clear liability arrangements are also critical to maintaining public confidence and ensuring accountability at all stages of the project.

The high upfront investment costs associated with CCS developments represent another challenge. The capital-intensive nature of offshore CCS infrastructure, including capture facilities, pipelines, injection wells, and monitoring systems, requires robust financial planning and risk management. The Arthit project’s funding framework—10 billion baht per year for five years—reflects an explicit attempt to secure the resources necessary to design, build, test, and operate a complex subsurface storage system. In this context, the ability to achieve economies of scale, share infrastructure with future CCS hubs, and leverage domestic supplier networks will influence the overall cost trajectory and the project’s long-term financial viability.

Safety considerations also come to the fore in offshore CCS, particularly in relation to well control, CO2 plume behavior, and potential impacts on marine ecosystems. The project’s safety case and environmental impact assessments will need to be continuously updated to reflect new data, emerging best practices, and any regulatory enhancements. Public engagement, risk communication, and proactive environmental monitoring are essential to maintaining trust with local communities and stakeholders. A transparent approach to risk identification, mitigation, and response plans will be central to ensuring that Arthit advances without compromising safety or ecological integrity.

Environmental and Social Implications

The deployment of CCS in offshore contexts carries a range of environmental considerations that warrant careful analysis and ongoing monitoring. By capturing and storing CO2, CCS has the potential to meaningfully reduce atmospheric emissions associated with gas production and processing, contributing to Thailand’s climate objectives and to the global effort to curb greenhouse gas concentrations. The Arthit project, as a field-scale CCS demonstration, offers the opportunity to quantify actual emissions reductions achieved through CCS and to refine best practices for offshore containment, monitoring, and governance. The environmental benefits are complemented by improvements in the overall carbon intensity of Thai gas production, which could help preserve the economic viability of domestic energy resources while aligning with international expectations for climate leadership.

However, offshore CCS also raises concerns about potential environmental risks. The integrity of offshore reservoirs, potential leakage pathways, and the behavior of CO2 plumes in deep marine environments are areas that require rigorous scientific study and continuous observation. Environmental impact assessments provide the baseline for understanding how CCS activities might interact with marine ecosystems, sediments, and water chemistry. The Arthit project’s monitoring program should be designed to detect any deviations quickly and to implement corrective actions if necessary. This approach helps mitigate potential risks and demonstrates a commitment to safeguarding marine environments while pursuing decarbonization goals.

Social implications also come into play, particularly for communities near industrial and energy facilities. Public engagement and clear communication about project objectives, safety measures, and expected outcomes are essential to maintaining social license to operate. The Eastern Thailand CCS Hub, in particular, implicates multiple districts and communities along the EEC corridor, making proactive stakeholder consultation a critical component of implementation. Ensuring that local workers have access to upskilling opportunities and that supply chains incorporate domestic capacity development can help maximize positive community impacts and foster broad-based support for CCS initiatives.

In addition to direct environmental and social effects, CCS deployments can influence broader energy transition dynamics. By enabling continued production of domestic gas while reducing emissions, CCS supports energy security and price stability for consumers and industry alike. It can also affect investment patterns, as industries and financial institutions reassess the risk profiles and returns associated with low-carbon energy infrastructure. The Arthit project, together with the Eastern Thailand CCS Hub, has the potential to shape policy discussions, drive technology transfer, and catalyze local and regional decarbonization efforts that extend beyond the immediate storage sites.

International Context and Comparisons

Across the globe, CCS is being pursued as part of national climate strategies, offering a spectrum of technical maturity, policy support, and deployment scale. Thailand’s approach—anchored in the Arthit CCS project and the Eastern Thailand CCS Hub—reflects a broader international pattern in which nations seek to deploy CCS to meet economy-wide decarbonization targets while maintaining energy resilience and industrial competitiveness. In many regions, CCS is viewed as a transitional technology that can bridge the gap between current fossil fuel use and a more diversified, low‑carbon energy system, particularly in sectors where direct electrification or alternative fuels face barriers.

International experiences with CCS vary in terms of regulatory frameworks, project financing, public acceptance, and technical performance. Some jurisdictions emphasize centralized CO2 transport networks, standardized regulatory regimes, and robust long-term liability arrangements, while others emphasize regional collaboration to share infrastructure costs and knowledge. The Arthit project and the Eastern Thailand CCS Hub can be analyzed in light of these global lessons, identifying best practices for equipment selection, site characterization, reservoir management, and governance structures that promote safety, environmental stewardship, and economic viability. From a policy perspective, the Thai government’s commitment to the NDC framework and Paris Agreement alignment mirrors a common international trend of integrating CCS into national climate strategies, signaling a willingness to embrace innovative decarbonization solutions within a regulatory and financial framework that seeks to minimize risk for investors and ensure accountability for outcomes.

The international context also informs potential synergies with other countries pursuing CCS in offshore environments. Knowledge exchange on reservoir integrity, CO2 transport, monitoring technologies, and regulatory approaches can accelerate learning and support the scaling of CCS across Southeast Asia. The Arthit project, by establishing a field-scale implementation in the Gulf of Thailand, could become a reference case for regional CCS deployments and a stepping stone toward broader cross-border collaborations on climate infrastructure. In this way, Thailand’s CCS journey is positioned not only as a national effort but as part of a regional strategy to harness carbon management technologies for sustainable development and climate resilience.

Conclusion

Thailand’s approval of the Arthit CCS project marks a pivotal moment in the country’s climate and energy transition, signaling a serious commitment to deploying carbon capture and storage at scale within the Gulf of Thailand. By capturing CO2 from gas production and securely injecting it into offshore reservoirs, the Arthit project aims to store up to 1 million tonnes per year, with storage depths between 1,000 and 2,000 meters, and to begin operations in 2028. The initiative is backed by a robust financial plan, with PTTEP planning to invest around 10 billion baht annually over five years to advance CCS technology. The project is framed as a national prototype, capable of informing future CCS deployments across Thailand and shaping the regulatory and technical standards required for safe and effective implementation.

The Arthit CCS venture sits within a broader policy and strategic context that includes Thailand’s NDC Action Plan for Mitigation 2021–2030 and the Paris Agreement framework. The government, through the Energy Ministry and other agencies, recognizes these efforts as integral to achieving the country’s long-term emissions reduction goals while supporting the development of domestic CCS capabilities. In parallel, PTTEP’s leadership and the PTT Group’s broader decarbonization agenda highlight a coordinated approach to CCS as a driver of both climate action and economic competitiveness. The Eastern Thailand CCS Hub feasibility study within the Eastern Economic Corridor further illustrates how CCS can be integrated with regional industrial ecosystems to amplify mitigation outcomes, support job creation, and strengthen Thailand’s position in the global low-carbon economy.

Together, Arthit and the Eastern Thailand CCS Hub represent a forward‑looking strategy to harness advanced carbon management technologies for a more sustainable energy future. They reflect a recognition that decarbonization requires a combination of technical innovation, policy support, financial commitment, and constructive collaboration among state actors, industry players, and local communities. As Thailand advances toward its 2065 net-zero target, CCS could emerge as a central pillar in the country’s climate and economic strategy, contributing to meaningful emissions reductions while preserving energy security and competitiveness in a rapidly evolving global energy landscape.