An INEOS-led carbon capture and storage project in Denmark was launched on Friday to become the first full-scale CO2 storage site in the European Union, UK-based chemicals and energy group INEOS said.
The Greensand CO2 storage facility, led by INEOS Energy, with partners Harbour Energy and the Danish North Sea Fund (Nordsøfonden), was inaugurated today by King Frederik X of Denmark.
The Greensand project expects to store up to 400,000 tons of CO2 annually in this first commercial phase, scaling toward a potential of up to 4–8 million tons per year when it reaches the planned full capacity.
INEOS will source CO2 primarily from Danish biomethane plants. Once captured, CO2 is liquefied, delivered by truck to a dedicated CO2 terminal at Port Esbjerg, shipped aboard Carbon Destroyer 1 – the EU’s first purpose-built CO2 carrier – and injected into the Nini West reservoir. Nini West is a depleted oil field some 250 kilometers (155 miles) offshore, at about 1,800 meters (5,900 ft) beneath the seabed.
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“Europe will not achieve net zero by closing factories and exporting its jobs. We need solutions that allow industry to remain competitive while reducing emissions. Greensand proves it can be done,” INEOS chairman, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, said in a statement.
The project “is a fully operational carbon storage business. The technology works. The storage is ready,” said the executive billionaire, who has criticized “Europe’s crippling energy and carbon policies” driving many industries, including the chemicals industry, to the brink of extinction.
Commenting on the Danish carbon storage project, Ratcliffe said “The challenge now is creating the right conditions for carbon capture to grow quickly at scale across Europe.”
Greensand is the EU’s first carbon storage site, but it is not Europe’s first.
Last year, the Northern Lights carbon capture and storage project (CCS) stored the first volumes of CO2 offshore western Norway, which is not an EU member state. Oil majors Equinor, TotalEnergies, and Shell are the Northern Lights project partners.
The partners have also taken the investment decision to expand the transport and storage capacity at Northern Lights from 1.5 million to a minimum of 5 million tons of CO2 per year, following a commercial agreement with Swedish energy provider Stockholm Exergi for cross-border transport and storage of up to 900,000 tons of biogenic CO2 annually.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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