Adds further project information
German upstream oil and gas company Wintershall Dea and UK-based Ineos today injected CO2 into the depleted Ineos-operated Nini oil field in the Danish North Sea, completing the pilot phase of the Greensands carbon capture and storage (CCS) project.
The carbon was captured at the Ineos oxide plant in Antwerp, liquefied and transported by ship to the Danish port of Esbjerg. It is a global first in for cross-border offshore CO2 storage to mitigate climate change, Ineos said. The first storage is of around 15,000 t/CO2, to prove viability, the consortium said. "It's the first time we see a full value chain", Wintershall chief executive Mario Mehren said today.
The consortium must still submit a development plan for approval to the Danish government. This could be ready late this year, Greensands project director Soren Reinhold Poulsen said. The Danish government awarded Wintershall and Ineos a CO2 storage permit for the pilot phase last month. The process had to be "close to" carbon-neutral in order to be granted the permit, Ineos said. But the exact emissions calculations of liquefying and transporting the CO2 have not yet been made, because the project is not yet at a commercial stage, Ineos Energy chief executive David Bucknall said.
Wintershall and Ineos head the 23 companies which make up the Greensands consortium. The Danish government awarded the project a grant of around €25mn ($26mn), which allowed the companies to complete the pilot phase, Ineos said.
But further government help is needed to create frameworks and policy for the CCS sector, for both the capture and storage aspects, executives said. "Governments will have to put in place incentives", Ineos Energy executive chairman Brian Gilvary said today.
The European commission will later this year publish a "comprehensive strategy" on carbon capture, usage and storage, commission president Ursula von der Leyen said today. "We need to remove carbon", on top of mitigation efforts, she added.
And a first tendering project for capturing CO2 in Denmark will launch "in the months to come", with more to follow, Danish energy minister Lars Aagaard said. "There is no chance in hell that we will meet [Paris targets] without CO2 storage", he added.
A final investment decision for Greensands is planned for the first half of 2024, and the project could start up in 2025.
The cross-border transport required a bilateral agreement between Belgium and Denmark, as cross-border transport of CO2 for subsea storage is otherwise prohibited by the London Protocol. An amendment to the Protocol allows the cross-border transport of CO2 for long-term storage, but has not been ratified by sufficient signatories.
"Denmark is likely to become one of the carbon sinks of the world", owing to CCS, Gilvary said. Speakers pointed to the country's geological advantages for CCS, noting that European heavy emitters such as Germany could store carbon in North Sea sites. "We're in contact with German emitters" that need abatement solutions, Wintershall chief technology officer Hugo Dijkgraaf said today.
