SPE CO2 Storage Work Group: Lessons from Managing Competitive Cross-Industry Technical Collaboration

Abstract This paper documents the operational experience of the SPE CO2 Storage Work Group (CSWG) in coordinating technical work across ~50 industry experts from competing organizations. We present the management approaches, coordination mechanisms, and information-sharing protocols that enabled practitioners from operating companies, service providers, government agencies, and academia to produce actionable technical deliverables despite commercial competition through our direct coordination experience. The methodology employs direct operational analysis of CSWG coordination activities across three specialized subgroups addressing regulatory/commercial frameworks, technical excellence, and standardization. We analyze coordination protocols developed for managing proprietary information sharing, technical champion leadership models for distributed expertise management, and convergence mechanisms for integrating diverse organizational perspectives. The assessment incorporates feedback from member organizations on deliverable adoption, coordination effectiveness evaluation, and competitive collaboration challenge documentation. Quality assurance processes are examined through peer review mechanisms and other protocols that maintain technical rigor across diverse expertise domains. The assessment reveals successful coordination across competitive organizations through identification of pre-competitive technical domains where standardization provides mutual benefit without compromising competitive advantage. Key coordination outputs include comparative regulatory framework and commercial environments analysis for project development, technical performance integration, unified nomenclature, and business-integrated risk management system connecting monitoring data to management decisions through structured decision architectures to improve operational response protocols and regulatory compliance. Information-sharing protocols utilizing Chatham House rules, aggregated data sharing, and structured technical champion accountability enabled participation from competing organizations while protecting commercial interests. Technical quality maintenance across diverse expertise required systematic peer review processes and champions who stake their professional reputation on deliverable quality. The framework enables knowledge transfer that reduces individual company development costs while maintaining competitive differentiation in implementation approaches. This represents the first systematic documentation of competitive collaboration management in the CCS industry, providing proven protocols for coordinating technical work across competing organizations. The study demonstrates scalable approaches to pre-competitive coordination that can be replicated by other industry groups facing similar collaboration challenges, offering practical frameworks for achieving the systematic industry coordination required for climate-relevant CCS deployment at unprecedented scales.