Greensands consortium stores first CO2 in Danish N Sea

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.

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. The London Protocol, which exempts safe long-term storage of CO2, has not been ratified by sufficient signatories.

By Georgia Gratton