Ineos to store carbon dioxide off Denmark as technology gains momentum
Launch of site follows opening of separate Norway project
Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos has opened a carbon dioxide storage site off the Danish coast, as momentum builds in Europe for the fledgling but expensive technology.
The chemicals group said its Greensand site, roughly 250km from the Danish shore and almost 2km beneath the seabed, would be able to store up to 400,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year in its first phase. Its launch followed the opening last week of a separate project in Norway.
Ineos said its scheme was the first full-scale site based fully in the EU. Its initial customers are mainly biomethane plants in Denmark, though Ineos said it could not disclose details of their commercial arrangements.
The site was opened on Friday by King Frederik X of Denmark at a ceremony attended by Ratcliffe and European energy commissioner Dan Jørgensen. “This is not a pilot project, a concept or a political ambition. It is a fully operational carbon storage business,” Ratcliffe said.
The project had potential to store up to 8mn tonnes each year as it scaled up, Ineos said. But this would require further drilling and more interest among customers for the technology, said Eadbhard Pernot, executive director of industry group Carbon Management Europe.
It marks a step forward in Europe’s ambitions to capture and store emissions from polluting industries that cannot easily reduce them by switching to low-carbon electricity or other measures — though critics argue pursuing carbon storage will only prolong the dependence of factories on fossil fuels. Scientists have also warned of the risk of leaks.
Storage under the seabed involves converting CO₂ into liquid form and pumping it deep into rocks to trap it.
Carbon permits that polluting industries have to buy in the EU currently cost about €87 per tonne. That has increased this year, partly because the Iran war has pushed up demand for coal-fired power. Companies do not have to purchase permits for carbon that they store, making it a potentially attractive option.
The sector’s development has been propelled by billions of euros in government subsidies.
This month, fertiliser company Yara opened a project to capture up to 800,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide released during ammonia production in the Netherlands and ship it out to a storage site under the Norwegian seabed.
Pernot, of Carbon Management Europe, told the FT the new project was “a landmark for our sector. We’ve made the case for carbon capture and storage as a climate tool for several years and decades.”
Other projects are planned in the Netherlands, Greece and the UK, where Eni is building a pipeline and storage site in Liverpool Bay to receive emissions from factories and power plants in the region.
However, the EU is unlikely to reach its target of providing 50mn tonnes of carbon capture and storage capacity by 2030. Climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told the FT this goal was “a stretch but at the same time it does start with these types of landmark projects”.
Ratcliffe, who is Ineos’s chair and co-founder, has long complained about high energy prices and carbon taxes pushing factories out of Europe. He said on Friday that projects such as Greensand would “allow industry to remain competitive while reducing emissions”.
The company said the EU now needed to establish the “regulatory, infrastructure and investment conditions” to allow the industry to scale.