ISO/TC 265 and TC 67: CCS Standards and Taiwan's Rules

When an offshore gas field is converted into a carbon dioxide (CO₂) storage site, the standards an engineering team has to check are spread across different technical committees (TCs) of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). How a storage well is designed falls under the standards of ISO/TC 265; steel pipe, wellhead equipment and offshore platforms fall under those of ISO/TC 67. Which standard applies still has to be confirmed case by case. This article draws on ISO/TC 265 presentations from several years, the 2022 annual review of the IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme (IEAGHG), and the scope documents of ISO/TC 67 to outline how the two committees divide their work and where they need to coordinate. It ends with Taiwan's current regulations and national standards.

ISO/TC 265 was approved in 2011 on a Canadian proposal

ISO's website currently gives the full name of ISO/TC 265 as "Carbon dioxide capture, transportation, and storage"; earlier documents call it "geological storage". According to a presentation by IEAGHG researcher Tim Dixon at an International Energy Agency (IEA) workshop in May 2017, the committee was proposed by Canada and approved by ISO members in 2011. At the time of the presentation a Canadian held the chair, and the secretariat was shared by Canada and China. IEAGHG's 2022 annual review states that the committee began operating in 2012, with 19 participating countries, 9 observer countries and 7 liaison organizations; IEAGHG itself is one of the liaison organizations.

The committee's scope covers the design, construction, operation, environmental planning and management, risk management, quantification, monitoring and verification of CO₂ capture, transportation and geological storage. The presentation also lists exclusions:

• Ocean storage by direct injection
• Storage by mineral carbonation
• Industrial uses of CO₂ unrelated to carbon capture and storage (CCS)
• Legal liability and permitting

The last item deserves attention. The scope of ISO/TC 265 does not include legal liability and permitting.

Six working groups led by different countries; a shipping group added in 2022

Dixon's 2017 presentation lists the six working groups (WGs) of that time and the countries leading them:

• WG 1 Capture: Japan
• WG 2 Pipeline transportation: Germany
• WG 3 Geological storage: Canada and Japan
• WG 4 Quantification and verification: China and France
• WG 5 Cross-cutting issues: France and China
• WG 6 CO₂ enhanced oil recovery (CO₂-EOR) storage: the United States and Norway

The IEAGHG 2022 annual review adds that WG 7, on shipping, was newly established in 2022. A 2014 presentation by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) also shows that the US technical advisory group was already taking part in WG 1 to WG 6, with 18 US members in WG 6.

Working groups usually start from existing documents. A 2016 presentation records that the geological storage group used the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) standard CSA Z741 as its base text, and the pipeline group used DNV RP J202 from Det Norske Veritas (DNV). When the draft geological storage standard went to ballot it drew 980 comments, and the working group later agreed to rewrite the text to prescribe fewer practices and lean toward performance requirements.

Separate standards for storage, enhanced-oil-recovery storage and capture performance

The IEAGHG 2022 annual review mentions two storage standards: ISO 27914:2017 for projects whose purpose is storage alone, and ISO 27916:2019 for CO₂-EOR projects. IEAGHG's comparative study (report 2022-11) finds the two complementary with little overlap. They can be used for site feasibility assessment, re-evaluation of old wells, and risk-based monitoring and verification plans, but they give limited support on approval procedures, ownership, the role of government and transport. The report also considers that existing petroleum regulation combined with these ISO standards can form a dedicated regulatory framework for CO₂ storage.

Those are the versions at the time of the 2022 review. According to ISO's website, ISO 27914:2026, ISO 27916:2026 and ISO 27913:2024 have been published, the earlier versions have been superseded, and the new versions should be cited.

The outputs of the other working groups were at different stages in Dixon's presentation:

• Pipeline transportation standard (ISO 27913): the 2016 ballot was approved 14 to 14, and the presentation planned publication for October 2016; ISO's website gives the publication date as November 2016.
• Cross-cutting vocabulary (ISO 27917): planned for October 2017, and ISO's catalogue lists ISO 27917:2017.
• Performance evaluation of post-combustion capture (ISO 27919): starting with Part 1, which addresses post-combustion capture systems integrated with power plants.

For the current edition and revision status of any standard, refer to its page on the ISO website.

ISO/TC 67 now includes lower carbon energy; storage stays with ISO/TC 265

ISO/TC 67 covers materials, equipment and offshore structures for the petroleum, petrochemical and natural gas industries. Its current name is "Oil and gas industries including lower carbon energy", and its secretariat is held by the Royal Netherlands Standardization Institute (Nederlands Normalisatie-instituut, NEN). Its subcommittees (SCs) include pipeline transportation systems (SC 2, with ISO 13623 and ISO 3183 as representative standards), drilling, production and injection equipment (SC 4), casing, tubing and drill pipe (SC 5), and offshore structures (SC 7, the ISO 19900 series).

The exclusions in the scope document mark out the fields of other committees:

• Hydrogen technologies belong to ISO/TC 197
• Biogas belongs to ISO/TC 255
• CO₂ capture, transportation and geological storage belong to ISO/TC 265

On 21 May 2025 ISO/TC 67 announced its 2025–2028 strategic business plan. The announcement lists the energy transition, standards quality, global industry needs, and stronger cooperation and participation as its priorities.

A paper outlines coordination problems between the two committees

Researchers from the China National Petroleum Corporation's engineering materials research institute (中國石油集團工程材料研究院) and other organizations published a paper in Supplement 1 of 2026 of China Standardization (《中國標準化》) on coordination problems of ISO/TC 67 in the low-carbon transition. The problems the paper raises include:

• Split responsibilities: hydrogen, carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) and carbon inventories sit in different committees. When oil and gas facilities are reused for CO₂ pipelines and storage, or for hydrogen-blended natural gas pipelines, responsibility for materials, pressure equipment and leak monitoring can overlap or leave gaps.
• Mismatched revision cycles: traditional standards take three to five years to revise, while technologies such as new absorbents and electrolyzers iterate faster.

The paper's recommendations include creating assessment standards for converting retired oil and gas wells, platforms and long-distance pipelines into CO₂ injection wells or hydrogen and ammonia networks, and setting up a standing joint working group of ISO/TC 67, ISO/TC 265 and ISO/TC 197. These are the authors' views.

Directions Taiwan can draw on

Under Article 39, paragraph 5 of the Climate Change Response Act, Taiwan's Ministry of Environment issued the Regulations on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage Management on 25 August 2026, with 30 articles in total, effective from the date of issue (Article 30). Several of its provisions are as follows:

• An applicant for storage approval must first hold documents approving exploration (Article 3). The application rules for exploration documents and for storage approval are in Articles 5 and 8, and Article 8 includes environmental impact assessment requirements.
• Eligibility: a non-state-owned enterprise must have paid-in capital, or a foundation registered assets, of at least NT$20 million; state-owned enterprises, government agencies and public and private colleges and universities may also apply (Article 4).
• The injected CO₂ stream must have a concentration of at least 95% (Article 17).
• CO₂ to be stored must in principle be captured domestically, except for pilot projects of up to 4,000 tonnes approved by the competent authority (Article 16).
• Abnormal conditions that meet the criteria for stopping injection, or any leakage, must be reported within 24 hours (Article 19).
• During storage and post-closure monitoring, the operator must submit financial guarantee documents and environmental damage liability insurance for the following year each year (Article 22). Post-closure monitoring lasts 20 years (Article 23), and the monitoring obligation can be lifted only with approval (Article 24).
• Existing pilot projects that were included in the Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program (前瞻基礎建設計畫) and passed environmental impact assessment may apply directly for storage approval within two years of the regulations' issue date (Articles 2 and 28).

On national standards, the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection (BSMI) of the Ministry of Economic Affairs has published the CNS 14064 series and CNS 14067 under the Chinese National Standards (CNS), corresponding to ISO 14064 and ISO 14067. For progress on the draft ISO 14060, see our article ISO 14060 draft: net-zero transition plans, validation and verification.

The September 2024 issue (No. 3) of BSMI's "Standards, Inspection and Metrology" (《標準、檢驗與計量》) carried an article by 劉信旺, an engineer at the measurement center (量測中心) of the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), titled "A Brief Look at International Developments in Metrology Standards for Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage". It proposes three metrology tasks that can be started first:

• Capture: online detection of flue gas impurities and evaluation of solvent performance.
• Transport: calibration of mass flow meters for dense-phase and supercritical CO₂ at high pressure, and pipeline leak monitoring with Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR).
• Storage: measurement accuracy of 3D seismic surveys, microseismic monitoring and soil gas sampling.

The regulations' requirements such as 95% purity, 24-hour reporting and 20-year monitoring all call for matching measurement and verification capability.