While the CCUS sector has moved beyond pilot projects and demonstrated feasibility at industrial scale, widespread deployment remains constrained by high capital intensity, limited transport and storage infrastructure, complex permitting processes, and persistent difficulties in reaching bankable business cases at FEED stage. The 3rd Danish Energy Agency CCS Tender illustrates this dynamic clearly: of ten pre-qualified facilities, eight withdrew before the Best and Final Offer stage, citing unresolved storage commitments and insufficient financial capacity to satisfy lender requirements.

A central argument of this paper is that procurement — not engineering — is the primary bottleneck holding back CCUS scale-up. Unlike conventional industrial projects, where procurement typically begins at FEED, carbon capture projects require procurement thinking to start during Pre-FEED. The supplier market remains small, technology scope and risk allocation vary significantly by vendor, and project costs depend heavily on how work packages are structured and how risk is distributed.

Drawing on lessons from past projects, this presentation identifies ten recurring failure modes spanning FEED definition, commercial readiness, site and permitting preparation, supplier engagement strategy, and risk management. Key findings include the necessity of a formal inception phase before FEED, the importance of engaging commercial and permitting advisors alongside technical teams, and the value of competitive tension in supplier selection. The presentation concludes that CCUS project success is determined more by the quality of early project definition than by engineering execution, and that procurement, commercial readiness, and risk allocation must all be treated as integral activities beginning at the feasibility stage.