By Nerijus Adomaitis and Dina Kartit
(Reuters) – Efforts to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and store it underground storage have gained steam across Europe over the past few years as industries and governments seek to reduce emissions to meet their climate goals.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology removes CO2 emissions from the atmosphere and stores them underground. Some of the captured CO2 can also potentially be used in a range of industrial applications.
There are around 70 existing or planned CCS projects in Europe, according to the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers. Here are some under development:
NORTH SEA
NORWAY * Northern Lights, a joint venture project by Equinor, TotalEnergies and Shell. It plans to start injecting up to 1.5 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of CO2 into saline acquifer near the Troll gas field from the middle of 2024. There are plans to increase storage capacity to 5-6 mtpa from 2026, pending demand. * Smeaheia, a project by Equinor to develop a storage site in the North Sea with a potential to inject up to 20 mtpa from 2027/2028. Equinor, which was awarded the exploration license in 2022, said it is looking at injecting the CO2 captured from its own hydrogen production, as well as some industrial customers in Europe. The company aims to make the final investment decision in 2025. * Luna, a project led by German Wintershall Dea, to store up to 5 mtpa of CO2 at a site some 120km west of Bergen. Wintershall Dea and its Norwegian partner Cape Omega were awarded exploration license in October. Wintershall Dea has 60% stake and Norway’s Cape Omega the remaining 40% in the license. * Errai, a joint project by Britain’s Neptune Energy and Norway’s Horisont Energi, to develop a storage site in the North Sea with 4-8 mtpa capacity and a receiving terminal onshore. The partners still need to apply for the license.
BRITAIN * Acorn CCS, a project off the coast of Scotland to develop a storage site with an annual capacity of 5-10 mtpa of CO2 by 2030. Storegga, Shell and Harbour Energy each hold 30% stakes and North Sea Midstream Partners (NSMP) the remaining 10% in the project. * Viking CCS, a project formerly known as V Net Zero and led by independent oil and gas firm Harbour Energy, aims to store up to 10 mtpa of CO2 by 2030 at depleted gas fields in the southern North Sea. It plans to start injecting CO2 in 2027, initially at a rate of 2 mtpa of CO2.
* Northern Endurance, a BP-led partnership that aims to develop infrastructure to transport and store about 20 mtpa of CO2 captured at two industrial clusters in Teesside and Humberside from 2030. The project plans to transport CO2 via pipelines to a storage site some 145 km offshore in the southern North Sea. Other partners in the project are National Grid, Equinor, Shell and TotalEnergies. NETHERLANDS * Porthos, a project by the port of Rotterdam, Gasunie and EBN, aims to store 2.5 mtpa of CO2 in depleted Dutch gas fields in the North Sea. All storage capacity has been already contracted by 4 industrial partners: Air Liquide, Air Products, ExxonMobil and Shell. The project planned to start CO2 injections in 2024-2025, but the startup is likely to be delayed due to legal hurdles. * L10, a project led by Neptune Energy, to store 4-5 mtpa of CO2 in a depleted gas field in the Dutch North Sea, with first injections expected to start in 2026. Other partners in the project are ExxonMobil, Rosewood Exploration and state-owned EBN. DENMARK * Greensand, a project led by INEOS Energy and Wintershall Dea, plans to start injecting up to 1.5 mtpa of CO2 from 2025 into depleted oil and gas fields in the Danish section of the North Sea, and increasing capacity to 8 mtpa by 2030. * Bifrost, a project led by TotalEnergies, aims to inject up to 3 mtpa of CO2 into a depleted oil and gas field in the Danish section of the North Sea from 2027. The project also involves Orsted, which operates offshore pipelines, and the Technical University of Denmark. Areas beyond Bifrost could be explored for potentially injecting up to 10 mtpa by 2030. GERMANY * Wilhelmshaven CO2 export terminal, a project led by Wintershall Dea to build a CO2 liquefaction and temporary storage facility at Wilhelmshaven, Germany’s only deep-water port, and then the CO2 could be shipped or piped to permanent storage sites under the North Sea. It aims to initially handle about 1 mtpa of CO2 from 2026.
OTHER STORAGE POINTS
BRITAIN
* HyNet North West project aims to convert gas and fuel gas from the Stanlow refinery in Cheshire into low-carbon hydrogen, capturing and transferring the CO2 produced during the process by pipelines to offshore storage in the Liverpool Bay. Pre-existing salt caverns in Cheshire will also be used as storage. Operations are expected to start in 2025 and will store about 4.5 mtpa of CO2, rising to 10 mtpa by 2030.
BULGARIA
* ANRAV, a project lead by private Irish energy company Petroceltic, will link CO2 capture facilities at HeidelbergCement’s Devnya cement plant in north-eastern Bulgaria with offshore permanent storage in the depleted Black Sea gas field of Galata. Expected to start operations in 2028, it will have a capacity of 800,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.
FRANCE
* PYCASSO, a project capturing carbon from industries in the south-west of France and in the north of Spain and storing it in a depleted gas field in Aquitaine. The project is planned to transport about 1 mtpa of CO2 by 2030.
ICELAND
* The Coda Terminal will be a cross-border carbon transport and storage hub in Straumsvík, operated by Icelandic carbon storage firm Carbfix. CO2 captured from industrial firms will be shipped to the terminal to be dissolved in water before being injected into basalt bedrock. The operations, scaled up in steps, is set to reach up to 3 mtpa of CO₂ from 2031.
* The Silverstone project, coordinated by Carbfix, will deploy commercial scale CO2 capture, dissolve CO2 in water and inject it into underground basalt rock for mineral storage into the Hellisheidi geothermal power plant, near Mount Hengill. Silverstone will capture and store about 25.000 tonnes of CO2 a year. It is expected to start up in the first quarter of 2025.
ITALY
* CCS Ravenna Hub, led by energy company Eni is a project to capture CO2 and transport it into offshore depleted gas reservoirs off the coast of Ravenna, in the Adriatic Sea. The first phase of the project is scheduled in 2023. The full capture, transport and storage chain will handle up to 100,000 mtpa of CO2.
IRELAND
* The Cork CCS project aims to store carbon captured from Irish industrial facilities into a depleted gas field in the Celtic Sea, potentially re-using an existing pipeline for transport. The project is lead by utility Ervia.
SWEDEN
* Slite CCS, a CCS project lead by HeidelbergCement and its Swedish subsidiary Cementa, at its Slite cement plant on the Swedish island of Gotland, in the Baltic Sea. It aims to capture up to 1.8 mtpa of CO2, about 3% of the country’s total emissions.
(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis and Dina Kartit, edited by Nina Chestney)
