Belgium and Denmark have just signed an agreement to allow the cross-border transport of CO2 emissions that have been captured at various industrial sites.
The deal aims to enable the safe, permanent storage of the captured carbon dioxide in depleted oil fields in the North Sea, offshore Denmark.
Thanks to the new agreement, trials of carbon storage in the North Sea can commence before the end of 2022, which is crucial for the Greensand carbon capture and storage (CCS) project to kick off.
Following the first-of-its-kind cross-border deal for the transport of CO2 in August, signed between open-source carbon transport network Northern Lights and Dutch fertilizer and ammonia producer Yara Sluiskil, this agreement inked on a government level marks a milestone achievement in the future of the carbon industry.
Of course, it is also a key step for the development of the Greensand project and for the consortium behind it with its plans to advance its operations across the entire CCS supply chain in Europe.
Relevant: Northern Lights Signs Its First Commercial And First Ever Cross-Border CO2 Transport Deal
The transport deal will see CO2 captured from industrial sites in Belgium to be shipped across the border to Denmark and the respective storage site.
For the trial phase of the project, however, emissions will initially be captured from an ethylene plant run by Ineos Oxide and will be transported via the port of Antwerp to Ineos’ oil platform to be injected into the former oilfield.
If the trials are successful, the storage capacity of the oil fields may be increased to reach a total of 1.5 million metric tons of CO2 per year by 2025.
Further storage capacity expansion could potentially be achieved between 2025 and 2030 by involving additional depleted fields, thus reaching up to 8 million tons of CO2 per year by 2030.
