The European Commission has approved a €260 million ($298 million) Belgian state aid package to support the development of the Kairos@C carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in Antwerp.
The funding will be provided to Air Liquide and BASF, whose industrial facilities in the Antwerp cluster are expected to supply carbon dioxide for capture and transport. Belgian authorities said the initiative will contribute to national and EU climate targets by reducing emissions from energy-intensive chemical production.
The Kairos@C project aims to capture CO2 from existing plants that produce hydrogen, ammonia and ethylene oxide. Once captured, the gas will be transported for permanent geological storage beneath the North Sea, forming part of a cross-border CCS value chain.
Over a projected 15-year operating period, the project is expected to prevent roughly 20 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions from entering the atmosphere.
Developers also intend to use the system to support the production of lower-carbon hydrogen and ammonia, which could help decarbonise industrial supply chains.
Funding structure and regulatory review
The new aid package will be financed by the Flemish regional government and delivered through a combination of upfront and performance-linked grants.
Each participating company will receive an initial €30 million (~$34 million) investment grant, followed by annual payments of €10 million (~$11.4 million) over a decade, contingent on the project achieving minimum emissions-reduction thresholds.
The Commission evaluated the measure under EU state aid rules and the bloc’s 2022 climate, environmental protection and energy guidelines. Officials concluded that the support would encourage investments that would not otherwise proceed, while remaining proportionate to the environmental benefits expected from the project.
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The review also determined that the funding would not significantly distort competition within the EU market. The Commission noted that the project does not involve increasing production capacity and includes safeguards requiring companies to return part of the funding if the project generates excess profits.
Kairos@C has previously received support from the Innovation Fund, which awarded the project more than €365 million in 2020 to demonstrate large-scale low-carbon technologies.
However, rising project costs linked to inflation in recent years meant additional public funding was required to move the project forward. With the latest approval in place, developers now aim to progress toward construction and deployment of the CCS infrastructure.
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