Country: Belgium

Location: Port of Antwerp

Project Highlights:

• The Port of Antwerp is Europe's second largest seaport by total freight annual tonnage, handling around 240 million tonnes in 2021 .
• It is one of the biggest break bulk ports in Europe and a major container port on the European mainland.
• The port hosts the largest petrochemical cluster in Europe, with refineries and chemical plants owned by major companies like ExxonMobil, BASF, Total, Bayer, Ineos and many others.
• The first stage of the initiative, Kairos@C , led by BASF and Air Liquide, will capture CO₂ from five plants: two hydrogen plants, two ethylene oxide plants, and one ammonia plant. When operations kick off in 2025, it could lead to annual reductions of up to 1.5 Mt of CO₂ from these five facilities.
• Since Belgium lacks the geological formations needed for underground CO₂ storage, necessitating international collaboration
• Initially plans to use the Northern Lights shipping and storage solution off the west coast of Norway

Stakeholders: Air Liquide, BASF, Borealis, ExxonMobil, INEOS, Fluxys and Total Energies, o The Port of Antwerp-Brugs

C02 Capture Capacity: initial phase plans to capture around 3.5 million tonnes of CO₂ per year

Storage Location: Initially, the project plans to use the Northern Lights shipping and storage solution. However, they are also exploring other storage options, such as depleted gas fields in the North Sea.

Sources of Captured CO₂: Major industrial facilities in the Port of Antwerp area producing emissions, including chemical plants, refineries, and others.

CO₂ Transportation: Open-access pipeline network, managed by Fluxys with Pipelink, designed to collect and transport CO₂ from industrial sources.

Country: Saudi Arabia

Location: Jubail Industrial Complex, northeastern coast of Saudi Arabia, on the Persian Gulf map..

Project Highlights:

• The Jubail Industrial City, also known as the Jubail Industrial Complex, is a major industrial hub located in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, on the Persian Gulf coast. One of the largest and most modern industrial cities in the world, it is a key component of Saudi Arabia's economic diversification efforts.
• The city is strategically located near Saudi Arabia's vast oil and gas reserves, providing easy access to raw materials and facilitating the export of finished products through the nearby King Fahd Industrial Port and the Jubail Commercial Port. It is also supported by a well-developed infrastructure, including roads, railways, utilities, and residential areas for workers.
• The Aramco Jubail Carbon Cluster is intended to planned to be operational by 2027.
• The project will tap into high-purity CO₂ streams from natural gas processing and other industrial sources, capturing 9 million tonnes of CO₂ annually, of which approximately 6 million tonnes will come from Aramco's gas plants and the remaining 3 million tonnes from other industrial processes.
• The hub will play a major role in Saudi Arabia's efforts to meet its interim sequestration target of 44 million tonnes of CO₂ per year by 2035.

Stakeholders: Aramco, Linde, and SLB (formerly Schlumberger)

C02 Capture Capacity: 9 million tonnes C02 per annum by 2027

Storage Facilities: Onshore saline aquifer close to site

Sources of Captured CO₂: Approximately 6 million tonnes of CO₂ will come from Aramco's gas plants, the remaining 3 million tonnes to be sourced from other industrial processes.

Country: USA

Region: Gulf Coast of Texas

Location: Jefferson and Chambers Counties

Project Highlights:

• The US Gulf Coast, particularly the Houston Ship Channel and Beaumont/Port Arthur region, is one of the most industrialized areas in the United States, housing extensive petrochemical, manufacturing, and energy facilities.
• Due to the high concentration of industrial activities, the region is responsible for significant emissions of carbon dioxide, approximately 100 million tons per year, making it an optimal location for the development of carbon capture and storage (CCS) solutions.
• The Gulf Coast region presents favourable geology for CO₂ storage, with several suitable formations identified, including saline aquifers and depleted oil and Gas Reservoirs: The Gulf Coast region has numerous depleted oil and gas reservoirs which have been extensively studied and which could be repurposed for CO₂ storage.

Stakeholders: Chevron, Talos Energy and Equinor

Storage Location: Onshore and offshore around the Beaumont/Port Arthur area

Storage Facilities: More than a mile underground in impermeable rock formations across a combined onshore and offshore area of 140,000 acres

C02 Storage Capacity: Over one billion metric tons of CO₂

Sources of Captured CO₂: industrial facilities located within the Houston Ship Channel and Beaumont/Port Arthur areas. These facilities include petrochemical plants, refineries, and other heavy industrial operations

Country: United Kingdom

Location: Humber and Teesside regions of the United Kingdom, spanning Yorkshire and the North East of England

Project Highlights:

• Collaboration of the Net Zero Teesside and Zero Carbon Humber hubs
• The potential to transport and store 50% of the UK's CO₂ emissions by 2050
• The sources of captured CO₂ for the East Coast Cluster project will be a variety of industrial facilities in the Humber and Teesside regions, including power plants, oil refineries, chemical, cement and steel manufacturing plants
• The captured CO₂ from these industrial sites will be transported to the offshore storage site, the Endurance aquifer, via a shared pipeline network being developed by the National Grid
• A shared infrastructure approach, involving multiple industrial partners and a common pipeline network, is expected to drive down the costs of CCS deployment and encourage wider adoption across various sectors
• Has the potential to unlock substantial economic opportunities in the region, creating jobs and supporting the development of a low-carbon industrial cluster in the Humber and Teesside areas

Stakeholders: Project is led by a consortium of companies, including BP, Equinor, Shell, TotalEnergies, and the National Grid. It also involves several industrial partners from the region's energy-intensive sectors.

Storage Location: Endurance aquifer, located under the North Sea, offshore from the Humber region

Storage Facilities: The Endurance aquifer is a deep saline formation situated approximately 1,000 meters below the seabed, about 145 kilometers (90 miles) offshore from England's Humber region. Its suitability as a storage site for captured CO₂ lies in its geological structure, which consists of a porous and permeable sandstone formation overlain by a thick layer of impermeable shale and mudstone. This caprock layer effectively prevents the upward migration of the injected CO₂. Additionally, the presence of saline water in the aquifer, which can react with CO₂, further enhances its storage integrity by potentially facilitating the mineralization of the CO₂.

C02 Storage Capacity: Endurance aquifer is estimated to have a storage capacity of up to 1 billion tonnes of CO₂.

CO₂ Transportation: Transport and storage will be provided by The Northern Endurance Partnership, a collaboration between BP, Equinor, National Grid Ventures, Shell, and TotalEnergies. NEP will develop and operate the offshore pipeline network to transport captured CO₂ from industrial sites to the storage locations, as well as the geological storage sites, primarily the Endurance aquifer.

Country: Norway

Region: Western Norway

Location: Øygarden, around 50 km northwest of Bergen.

Project Highlights:

• Northern Lights is the transport and storage arm of Norway's Longship CCS program (Langskip in Norwegian); Longship provides state funding to support investment in carbon capture at industrial sites, while Northern Lights is responsible for financing and executing the CO₂ shipping and offshore storage infrastructure
• Permanent CO₂ storage underground in a reservoir beneath the North Sea, around 2,600 meters below the seabed, offshore from Øygarden municipality, around 25 km west of Bergen.
• Transportation by sea of CO₂ from industrial capture sites
• Represents the first storage project for cross-border CO₂ transportation and is being developed as an open-access infrastructure to help decarbonize industrial emissions in Norway and across northern Europe
• Aims to demonstrate full-scale carbon capture and storage is viable and kick-start development of CCS value chains.
• Project is benefitting from experience and knowledge gained from Norway's offshore oil and gas industry

Stakeholders: Equinor, Shell, TotalEnergies, Norwegian Government

Storage Facilities: A receving terminal at Øygarden will receive liquid CO₂ transported by specialized CO₂ carrier ships from industrial capture sites. The terminal facilities include temporary storage tanks to temporarily hold the liquefied CO₂ before it is pumped through pipelines offshore to the injection platform location. The CO₂ will be injected into a thick reservoir of sandstone rock around 2,600 meters below the seabed offshore from Øygarden. This sandstone reservoir is covered by several layers of dense cap rock, primarily consisting of shale and mudstone formations. These overlying layers of impermeable shale and mudstone cap rock act as an effective seal to trap the injected CO₂ and prevent it from migrating upwards out of the sandstone reservoir formation.

C02 Storage Capacity: Initial phase of the facility has been designed to receive and store up to 1.5 million tonnes of CO₂ per year

Sources of Captured CO₂: The first major sources will be cement producer Norcem's plant in Brevik and the Hafslund Oslo Celsio waste-to-energy plant. Several other industrial facilities in the Oslo-fjord region and continental Europe have also signed agreements to send CO₂ for storage at Northern Lights.

CO₂ Transportation: Two purpose-built CO₂ carriers are being constructed to transport liquefied CO₂ by ship from the capture sites to the receiving terminal at Øygarden. Then by pipeline to offshore storage site via an injection well.

Project Status: The drilling for the first injection well was completed in March 2023. Major construction at the receiving terminal is nearing completion. Pending final regulatory approval, CO₂ injection could begin as early as mid to late 2024.

See also : Brevik Cement Plant CCS