06.08.2026
From emissions to opportunity: Building the new carbon economy
For decades, carbon dioxide (CO₂) has been viewed as an unavoidable by-product of industrial activity, something to reduce, capture or permanently store. Now that perception is changing.
Across the UK and Europe, captured CO₂ is beginning to take on an entirely new role. Rather than simply representing an emissions challenge, it is increasingly being recognised as a valuable industrial resource with applications across a range of industries. Taken together, these developments are laying the foundations for an entirely new carbon economy, where captured CO₂ is no longer simply stored and managed, but bought, sold and reused as a valuable industrial resource.
While much of the conversation has focused on advances in carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) technology, the bigger commercial challenge lies beyond the point of capture. How will captured CO₂ reach the industries that need it? How will businesses ensure consistent quality, regulatory compliance and reliable supply? And how do projects move from promising pilot schemes to commercially viable operations?
As carbon transitions from a waste product to a traded commodity, dependable CO₂ logistics and supply chains will become just as important as the capture technology itself. For project developers, industrial emitters, carbon utilisation businesses and investors alike, the focus is shifting from whether carbon can be captured – to how it can be commercialised at scale.
Carbon is no longer just a waste product
Europe’s transition towards a low-carbon economy is accelerating this shift. Legally binding net zero targets, the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and significant investment in carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) clusters (for example, in the Humber and Teesside) are changing the economics of industrial emissions. Increasingly, carbon is no longer viewed solely as a cost of doing business but as a valuable resource with the potential to create new commercial opportunities.
This is moulding two distinct pathways. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) focuses on permanently storing captured CO₂ to prevent it from entering the atmosphere. Carbon capture and utilisation (CCU), meanwhile, transforms captured carbon into a feedstock for new products and industrial processes. While both approaches play an important role in decarbonisation, CCU introduces something fundamentally different. It creates an opportunity for carbon to become part of a circular economy where captured CO₂ can be reused across multiple industries.
That demand is already beginning to emerge. Captured CO₂ is being used in the production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and synthetic fuels, lower-carbon chemicals, carbon-cured construction materials, food and beverage applications and greenhouse agriculture. Rather than ending its journey at the point of capture, carbon is beginning a new one.
As these markets continue to evolve, CO₂ is starting to behave like any other industrial commodity. It requires defined quality standards, reliable availability, specialist handling and dependable routes to market. Capturing carbon is only the first step. The real opportunity lies in creating the infrastructure and supply chains that allow captured carbon to move safely, efficiently and at scale between those producing it and those creating value from it.
For businesses investing in CCU, the challenge is no longer simply reducing emissions. It is becoming part of an entirely new market where commercial success will depend not only on innovation but on the ability to connect supply with demand.
A new market for carbon is emerging
As more organisations invest in carbon capture, an equally important question is emerging. If carbon is becoming a valuable resource, who is going to use it?
The answer is far broader than many people realise. While carbon capture is often associated with permanent storage, growing demand for captured CO₂ used as a traded molecule is creating new opportunities across a wide range of carbon utilisation markets. SAF, hydrogen-derived e-fuels and low-carbon construction materials are among the fastest-growing markets in the UK, Germany and the EU due to policy support and mandated decarbonisation – all using captured carbon as a key feedstock. The Carbon Capture and Storage Association’s (CCSA) latest industry survey, published in its CCUS Delivery Plan Update 2025, identified over 100 CCU projects now in development, in all major industrial regions, with a potential capture capacity of 77 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.
This diversification is changing the way carbon moves through the economy. Rather than travelling from a single capture site to a single storage location, captured CO₂ is beginning to flow between multiple producers and end users. In time, today’s fragmented projects could evolve into interconnected carbon supply chains, linking industrial clusters with utilisation facilities, export hubs and permanent storage sites across the UK and Europe.
For businesses developing CCU projects, this presents both an opportunity and a challenge. Capturing carbon is only commercially valuable if there is a viable route to market. Without reliable demand, captured CO₂ risks becoming a stranded asset rather than a source of future revenue.
At the same time, demand alone is not enough. Supply must be available when customers need it, delivered to the required specification and supported by infrastructure capable of adapting as the market grows. This will require close collaboration between capture operators, utilisation businesses, storage providers and specialist logistics partners to create supply chains that are both resilient and commercially viable in an interconnected market.
As the carbon economy continues to develop, the conversation is shifting. Success will no longer be measured solely by the amount of carbon captured, but by how seamlessly businesses can connect supply with demand and create lasting value from every tonne of CO₂. For logistics providers, this shift represents an equally significant opportunity. Businesses capable of connecting fragmented supply with fragmented demand will play an increasingly important role in supporting the carbon economy. As a leading bulk gas logistics provider, Oxalis Logistics are well positioned to help customers bridge that gap, connecting fragmented supply and demand, aggregating volumes, enabling distribution flexibility and connecting multiple demand points to single or multiple sources.
Building carbon logistics networks for commercial success
As the carbon economy evolves, the conversation is moving beyond carbon capture itself. Increasingly, businesses are asking a different question: how can captured carbon be moved safely, efficiently and commercially from source to end user?
The answer will vary depending on the project, but one thing is becoming increasingly clear. Supply chains will play a fundamental role in determining which CCU projects succeed at scale.
The evidence from the UK, EU network modelling, and current European projects suggests that shipping and other non-pipeline modes, such as road transport, will be essential to the carbon market formation and the primary means of moving captured CO₂, even if pipelines dominate later. While dedicated pipeline networks will of course form an important part of future carbon infrastructure, many projects will come online long before those networks are fully established. Even as pipeline capacity grows, road transport will continue to play a vital role in carbon transport, and provide the flexibility needed to connect capture sites with storage facilities, pipeline access points, ports and utilisation businesses.
For project developers, this raises a series of important considerations.
- How will captured CO₂ be transported during commissioning?
- How do businesses ensure quality, traceability and regulatory compliance throughout the supply chain?
- And how can logistics evolve as production volumes increase and new utilisation markets emerge?
These are not simply operational questions. They are commercial ones. The ability to deliver captured carbon reliably, safely and to specification will influence customer confidence, project economics and long-term scalability.
As new carbon markets develop, businesses will need supply chains that are capable of adapting alongside them. That means balancing transport costs, responding to changing demand, integrating different transport modes and maintaining flexibility while more permanent infrastructure continues to expand.
Why carbon capture and utilisation needs different supply chains
Unlike many traditional industrial products, CO₂ logistics presents a unique set of operational challenges. Depending on its destination, it may need to be transported as a pressurised liquid, with strict controls around pressure, temperature and product purity throughout the journey.
Different end uses also require different specifications. CO₂ destined for food production has different quality requirements to carbon being used in construction materials or synthetic fuel production. Maintaining those standards demands robust operational controls, specialist equipment and complete traceability from capture site to end user.
At the same time, many of today’s CCU projects are relatively small and geographically dispersed. Rather than moving large volumes between fixed locations, early carbon supply chains are likely to involve multiple capture sites, multiple customers and changing demand patterns. Other common challenges also include infrastructure gaps, high capital costs and regulatory complexity. And storage capacity also remains constrained in many regions, making close coordination between storage operators and logistics providers essential. This creates a level of complexity that differs significantly from more established energy markets.
Successfully managing these evolving supply chains will require close collaboration across the value chain, with logistics at the interface. Capture operators, storage providers, utilisation businesses and logistics specialists must work together to coordinate product availability, product specifications, delivery schedules and regulatory compliance, while ensuring the flexibility to adapt transport modes, storage options, routing and scheduling as the infrastructure develops.
These are capabilities that already exist within specialist industrial gas logistics. Experience in handling hazardous materials, cryogenic products and highly regulated supply chains provides a strong foundation for supporting the next phase of the carbon economy. As CCU moves from demonstration projects towards commercial deployment, selecting partners with that operational expertise will become an increasingly important part of building resilient, scalable supply chains.
Lessons from sustainable energy transitions
While the carbon economy is still in its early stages, the challenges facing CCU are not entirely new. Emerging energy sectors such as hydrogen, LNG, industrial gases and sustainable aviation fuel have all demonstrated that building new markets requires much more than technological innovation.
In each case, success has depended on the ability to create reliable, scalable supply chains alongside production. Businesses have needed confidence that products can be moved safely, consistently and cost-effectively before wider commercial adoption can take place. Where infrastructure has lagged behind demand, flexible transport solutions have played a critical role in bridging the gap and enabling markets to grow.
The carbon economy is likely to follow a similar path. For organisations developing CCU projects, integrating CO₂ logistics into the earliest stages of project planning is not simply about reducing operational risk. It is about creating a commercially resilient business model that can adapt as the market evolves.
At Oxalis Logistics, we are already aligned to these sectors through our vast experience in industrial gas and bulk fuel transportation, and emerging energy logistics such as SAF and hydrogen transportation. In Europe, we have already started transporting CO₂ – bringing international knowledge and capability in CCU supply chains to our partners.
We see the early commercial phase of the carbon economy as critical – with the need for specialist tanker fleets capable of transporting liquefied and pressurised CO₂ between capture sites, interim storage, ports and utilisation facilities. In later market phases, these road tankers will still be needed to transport the CO₂ from source to pipeline access point.
It will require strict adherence to ADR regulations, industrial gas standards and full chain-of-custody tracking. We already provide these capabilities through our established CO₂ transport operations, with specialised future-ready CO₂ trailers, compliance systems, trained drivers, an ingrained culture of safety, and specialist equipment and operational controls, ensuring CO₂ meets its required purity and handling standards throughout the journey.
Projects must also optimise logistics costs, ensure high asset utilisation and secure long-term offtake agreements. For our partners, Oxalis Logistics can contribute to this by optimising delivery networks, consolidating loads, and offering both flexible and scalable logistics models that evolve alongside production volumes.
The businesses that will shape the carbon economy
At Oxalis Logistics, we believe the next chapter of industrial decarbonisation will be defined not only by advances in carbon capture technology, but by the strength of the supply chains that connect captured carbon with the industries that can create value from it. The carbon economy will be shaped by partnerships connecting industrial emitters, capture technology providers, storage operators, utilisation businesses and logistics specialists into one integrated value chain.
This is where specialist CO₂ logistics providers have an important role to play. Experience in transporting industrial gases, managing hazardous materials, operating specialist equipment and delivering highly regulated supply chains provides the operational foundation needed to support the next generation of CCU projects.
By combining decades of experience in specialist logistics with expertise across industrial gases, sustainable fuels and other emerging energy sectors, we can provide immediately deployable CO2 transport solutions, helping customers mobilise for a future where carbon is no longer simply managed, but moved, utilised and commercialised.
CCU scale-up will depend less on isolated breakthroughs in molecule conversion than on the creation of dependable carbon logistics systems. The companies that can aggregate fragmented volumes, enforce specifications, manage interface assets, handle dangerous goods safely, and provide trusted carbon data will help determine which pathways move from pilot to infrastructure class.
The next chapter of industrial decarbonisation will not be defined solely by how much carbon can be captured. It will be defined by how effectively businesses can connect that carbon with the industries capable of creating value from it.
If you are exploring CCU logistics solutions in the UK or wider Europe, contact Joel Griffin to discuss our bespoke logistics solutions.
Whatever your logistics challenge, we are ready to make it our challenge too.