Project Greensand | Danish offshore carbon capture pioneer scouts North Sea oil field plan

Ineos Energy-led consortium brings in UK engineers Kent to screen 'full value chain' for landmark project which aims to inject huge volumes of CO2 from onshore emitters into the depleted Nini oil & gas field

Ineos-operated Nini A oil & gas field off Denmark, location of the Greensand carbon capture and storage projectFoto: INEOS

Darius Snieckus

A pioneering Danish offshore energy transition project looking into storage of as much as eight million tonnes of industrial carbon emissions by the end of the decade, has taken a key step forward with development consortium lead Ineos Energy starting “full carbon capture value-chain” screening work.

UK engineering consultancy Kent will be brought into scope out everything from “capture sites” on land, through liquefaction and onshore storage to transportation and offshore sequestration of huge volumes of carbon dioxide (CO₂) for Project Greensand, which in its first phase aims to start storing up to 1.4m tonnes a year in the depleted Nini oil & gas field in the Danish North Sea.

Project Greensand – a joint operation between 23 Danish and international partners in the CCS arena, including private companies, research institutes, universities and start-ups – foresees expanding the project to other decommissioned offshore oil & gas fields in the Siri area.

Neil Taylor, operations director of UK consulting at Kent, said: “Project Greensand is among the frontrunners of CO₂ storage projects in Europe and has the potential to support Denmark’s and Europe’s wider CO₂ emission reduction targets.”

“This significant project adds to Kent’s portfolio of expertise in carbon capture and decarbonisation and brings together [our] multi-disciplinary capability in process and facilities, subsea and pipelines, flow assurance, naval architecture, and materials and corrosion.”

The CO₂ for the pilot phase, running to 2023, will come from the Ineos Oxide factory in Belgium, where CO2 is already captured, and now being liquefied and shipped in special containers to the Nini West platform where it is pumped down an existing well and stored 1,800 meters below the seabed in a sandstone reservoir.

This will be followed by expansion of the project to the full Nini Main field, with larger-cargo vessels shuttling liquid CO2 to the central platform to pumped down dedicated new injection wells.

If Project Greensands ambitions are achieved, the total annual captured CO2would equate to that of 725,000 Danes, more than 13% of the country carbon output.

The highest profile of Europe offshore CCS project, Northern Lights, a venture in Norway involving Shell, Equinor and TotalEnergies, is expected to start operating phase one in 2024, and last September signed a cross-border deal to transport carbon via ships from the Yara fertiliser plant in the Netherlands.

Project Greensand | Danish offshore carbon capture pioneer scouts North Sea oil field plan

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