The most comprehensive record yet of carbon dioxide stored underground through geological carbon dioxide storage has been published, revealing that 43.6 million metric tons were sequestered in 2024 alone, a new annual record, and that 421.7 million metric tons have now been stored in the past three decades.
The 2026 Annual Report from The London Register of Subsurface CO2 Storage, led by researchers from Imperial College London, tracks the annual rates of CO2 stored by operational projects worldwide. This year's edition expands the Register to 70 projects across 17 countries on six continents.
"Our latest report shows that geological CO2 storage has become a global enterprise, with annual reported storage more than doubling between 2016 and 2024, and the Register itself now covering 70 individual projects around the world," said Professor Samuel Krevor, director of the Register at Imperial's Department of Earth Science and Engineering.
Reported annual storage rose from 21.0 million metric tons in 2016 to the record 43.6 million metric tons in 2024, which stands as the most recent complete reporting year.
Projects in the United States remain the largest contributors by number, with 23 projects reporting a combined 20.2 million metric tons, while Brazil's Petrobras Santos Basin Pre-Salt Oil Field remained the single largest project, reporting 14.2 million metric tons, or approximately one-third of the global total. China's reported storage increased to 1.7 million metric tons and Australia reported 1.7 million metric tons with the addition of the Moomba project. New Zealand and Italy both entered the Register for the first time, and the Northern Lights project in Norway began injection in August 2025.
This year's report also includes significant revisions to previously published figures, following a new interpretation of data from the North Burbank Unit to account for recycled CO2, a correction of double counting between company-level and project-level reporting, and revised national inventory figures for Sleipner, the world's first commercial carbon capture and storage project.
Cumulative geological CO2 storage through 2023 has therefore been revised from 351.4 to 342.0 million metric tons, a decrease of 2.7 per cent, while the 2023 annual figure has been revised from 45.2 to 41.7 million metric tons.
"These revisions reflect the latest evidence, and we have been explicit in the report about where the accounting for reported storage remains uncertain," said Dr Xiaowei Gao, executive director of the Register. "That transparency matters if geological CO2 storage is to earn the confidence of policymakers and investors."
At the time of publication, 29 projects across 12 countries had reported 2025 storage data, with an aggregate of 36.2 million metric tons, a figure the authors caution is incomplete and should not be interpreted as a full-year global total.
A large share of the reported storage, 82.3 per cent of the cumulative total, is categorised as Geological Storage with Oil Recovery, much of which aims to extend the operating life of an existing oil field. Around a third of the CO2 reported under that category, 112.5 million metric tons, is simply recorded as "injected".
Krevor set out the scale required. "To meet the 1.5C target pledged by the Paris Agreement, all projections indicate that geological CO2 storage must scale up to 1 billion metric tons of CO2 storage or more per year by 2050," he said.
Set the two reporting years side by side, however, and a second mechanism appears. The record for 2024 is 43.6 million metric tons. Last year's report put 2023 at 45.2 million metric tons. This year's report puts 2023 at 41.7 million. The 2024 record stands 1.9 million metric tons above a figure that fell by 3.5 million while nobody was injecting anything.
We should be careful here, because the revision is documented, explained and plainly a correction. But it establishes a second route to a record year, and that route does not involve a well.
The cumulative total moved the same way. Storage through 2023 went from 351.4 to 342.0 million metric tons, which means 9.4 million metric tons left the ground by footnote, without disturbing a single cubic metre of rock.
The target offers plenty of room to work with. One billion metric tons a year by 2050 is roughly 23 times the 2024 figure, and a gap can be closed from either end. Our analysts note that the historical end is considerably cheaper to move, requires no drilling permits and is revised annually as a matter of good practice.
The Department of Unnecessary Research has asked the Register to confirm which of its totals is currently in the rock, and will accept any of them.
Nothing need be injected at all to set next year's record. It need only be removed from an earlier one.