Croatia's Ministry of Economy has signed a 2.7 million euro grant agreement to fund research into carbon capture and storage potential across the country, providing 100 per cent co-financing under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan 2021 to 2026. The project will assess the potential for geological storage of carbon dioxide both onshore and offshore, develop a geological atlas of suitable storage sites and prepare a Pre Front End Engineering Design study for the Bockovac site. The grant matters because it represents one of the first concrete public investments in carbon capture and storage infrastructure in Croatia and provides the technical foundation that the country will need to support the decarbonisation of its heavy industry sectors.

 

The Scope of the Funded Project

 

The grant will fund several interlinked workstreams that together establish the technical basis for future carbon capture and storage development in Croatia. A geological atlas will be developed covering deep saline aquifers and geological structures suitable for permanent carbon dioxide storage across both onshore and offshore locations. A Pre Front End Engineering Design study will be prepared for the Bockovac site, which is being assessed as a potential storage location. A specialised software package for designing carbon capture and storage systems will be procured, and promotional activities will be carried out to support broader awareness and stakeholder engagement.

The combination of these elements is significant because it addresses several of the key gaps that typically constrain the development of national carbon capture and storage capacity. Without a verified geological atlas, project developers cannot identify and prioritise potential storage sites with confidence. Without site specific engineering studies, individual projects cannot be advanced to investment decision. Without dedicated software and analytical tools, public authorities and developers struggle to evaluate options on a comparable basis. By funding all of these foundational components together, the Croatian government is creating the technical infrastructure needed to support an eventual pipeline of carbon capture and storage projects.

 

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The Strategic Role of the Hydrocarbons Agency

 

Marijan Krpan, President of the Management Board of the Croatian Hydrocarbons Agency, framed the project as reinforcing the agency's role in the decarbonisation of heavy industry. The atlas being developed under the grant is expected to serve as a foundation for future carbon capture and storage projects in Croatia, including a planned strategic geothermal and carbon capture and storage project that combines transport infrastructure, storage capacity and the utilisation of geothermal energy.

The strategic positioning of the Hydrocarbons Agency in carbon capture and storage development reflects a broader pattern across central and southeastern Europe, where existing oil and gas regulators are extending their mandates to cover the storage of carbon dioxide in geological formations. This approach makes use of existing geological expertise, subsurface data and regulatory experience, allowing carbon capture and storage to be developed alongside the wider repurposing of legacy hydrocarbon infrastructure. For Croatia, this combination is particularly relevant because the country has substantial existing oil and gas geology and surface infrastructure that could potentially be adapted to support carbon transport and injection.

 

Why Carbon Capture and Storage Matters for Croatia's Industrial Base

 

Croatia has a number of industrial sectors that face significant challenges in achieving deep decarbonisation through electrification or renewable energy alone. Cement, chemicals, refining and certain heavy manufacturing processes generate emissions that cannot be fully eliminated through energy efficiency or fuel switching. For these sectors, carbon capture and storage is increasingly being treated as one of the few viable options for substantial emissions reductions in the medium term, particularly as the European Union's Emissions Trading System tightens and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism extends carbon costs across more parts of the supply chain.

By developing the technical and regulatory infrastructure required to support carbon capture and storage now, Croatia is positioning itself to enable industrial decarbonisation in line with European policy timelines. Without domestic storage capacity, Croatian industrial emitters would either need to export captured carbon dioxide to other countries with available storage, which adds cost and logistical complexity, or accept that they cannot reduce emissions in the most challenging segments of their operations.

 

The Strategic Geothermal and Carbon Capture and Storage Project

 

The grant funded research is closely linked to the planned strategic geothermal and carbon capture and storage project, which aims to combine geological carbon storage with geothermal energy utilisation. This integrated approach is technically attractive because both activities rely on similar subsurface infrastructure and expertise. Geothermal energy production typically requires the same kinds of deep wells, reservoir characterisation and operational systems that carbon dioxide injection requires.

Combining the two activities can therefore reduce the overall cost of subsurface infrastructure development, while creating a dual revenue stream that improves the financial viability of projects that might otherwise be marginal on a standalone basis. For Croatia, the integrated geothermal and carbon capture and storage approach offers a way to develop both clean baseload heat and electricity production and emissions reduction infrastructure in a single coordinated programme, which is an efficient use of public investment in the energy transition.

 

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The Importance of Building the Expert Foundations Now

 

Luka Balen, Director of the Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency Fund, emphasised the importance of establishing expert foundations to support future decision making on decarbonisation infrastructure. He pointed to the creation of the atlas of geological storage structures and the feasibility study at the Bockovac site as the key tools that will enable informed decisions on future investments. This framing is significant because it positions the current grant funded research not as a substitute for project development, but as a necessary precondition for it.

The development of carbon capture and storage capacity is typically a long term process that involves multiple stages of geological assessment, engineering design, regulatory approval and project finance. Establishing the underlying technical and regulatory infrastructure can take years before the first commercial scale projects are operational. By initiating this work now under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, Croatia is creating the conditions under which industrial emitters and project developers can begin to plan investment decisions with greater confidence about the availability of domestic storage capacity over the coming decade.

 

What the Grant Signals for Central and Southeastern European Carbon Capture and Storage

 

The wider significance of the Croatian grant lies in what it indicates about the trajectory of carbon capture and storage development across central and southeastern Europe. While larger European economies including Norway, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have moved further along the carbon capture and storage development curve, smaller economies in southeastern Europe are now beginning to invest in the foundational research needed to support their own carbon capture and storage development.

For other countries in the region facing similar industrial decarbonisation challenges, the Croatian approach provides a useful template, combining public funding for geological assessment, integration with existing hydrocarbon expertise, alignment with adjacent technologies such as geothermal energy and clear linkage to broader decarbonisation strategy. The performance of the Croatian programme over the coming years, measured by the quality of the geological atlas, the progress of the Bockovac feasibility study and the eventual emergence of commercial scale projects, will provide an early indicator of how effectively smaller European economies can develop carbon capture and storage capacity to support their industrial transition.