Consortium members agree to back Greensand, carbon storage pilot project, in support of Denmark’s ambitious 70% CO2 reduction targets by 2030

• 29 consortium members have today signed up to phase 2 of Europe’s first full Chain Climate Carbon Capture and Storage Pilot project.
• Proof of concept planning is now getting underway with potentially start around Q4 2021 subject to the implementation of the agreements outlined in the Danish North Sea Agreement of Dec. 2020.
• The consortium will now file a grant application with the Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Program.
• Mads Weng Gade, Head of Country, Denmark and Commercial Director INEOS Energy said ,“We are taking this step by step. We now have the consortium in place, and if we are successful in receiving ongoing support from the Danish Government and advisory board, Greensand will be able to take another important step forward in supporting the Danish Climate Strategy.”

INEOS Energy, Wintershall Dea and a consortium of 29 companies, research institutes and universities, have today signed an agreement to support the next phase of the Greensand pilot project to demonstrate the safe and permanent storage of CO₂.

The Greensand consortium will now file a grant application with the Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Program in Denmark. If the application is successful the consortium targets the start of work by end 2021, with the offshore injection pilot taking place in late 2022.

Mads Weng Gade, Head of country, Denmark and Commercial Director INEOS Energy said “Greensand has brought together a strong consortium of 29 companies, with strong competencies across key players from Denmark and around the world.

“We are taking this step by step. Today we have the consortium in place, and if we are successful in receiving ongoing support from the Danish Government and advisory board, Greensand will be able to take another important step forward in supporting the Danish Climate Strategy.”

A large majority of the Danish Parliament decided in December 2020 to set aside a special funding pool to support a Danish CO₂ storage pilot project, aiming to investigate the reservoir-CO₂ interaction in the Danish North Sea. This pilot project, if designed correctly, could form the basis for a decision, to enable CO₂ storage by 2025.

Project Greensand is amongst the frontrunners of CO₂ storage projects in Europe. The project has the potential to make a significant contribution to our understanding and growth of carbon storage technology, whilst supporting Denmark’s wider CO₂ emission reduction targets for 2030 and beyond.

ENDS.

Press contacts:

Johan Svendsen           +45 30186562

Richard Longden         +44 79962612

Note to editors

About the Greensand Consortium

The consortium comprises major Danish companies, international companies with expertise in carbon capture, international research institutes and universities, as well as small Danish start-ups with groundbreaking ideas on monitoring technologies.

Consortium members

About Greensand

• The primary objective of the Greensand project is to safely and permanently store potentially up to 8m tonnes of CO₂ per annum in the INEOS operated Siri area.
• The storage potential, if achieved, will contribute significantly to Denmark’s 2030 overall emissions reduction target
• The Greensand project has three phases: Appraisal, Pilot (Proof of concept) and Full project execution.
• The Completed Appraisal phase had field owners INEOS, and Wintershall Dea, plus consortium members Maersk Drilling and Danish Government backed GEUS.
• The project recently cleared a major hurdle as DNV GL independently certified that the Nini West field is conceptually suitable for injecting 0.45 million tons CO₂ per year per well for a 10-year period, and that the subsea reservoir can safely contain the CO₂.
• Pilot phase (Proof of concept) planning is now getting underway with potentially start around Q4 2021 subject to the implementation of the agreements outlined in the Danish North Sea Agreement of Dec. 2020.
• The FID for full-scale project will commence after proof of concept, planned FID in second half 2023, and will have an estimated delivery duration of around 24 months after which carbon storage could be operational from around 2025.
• The Paleocene sandstone fields of the Siri Area in the Danish North Sea are located at an optimal depth of 1.5-2.2km and are encased in one of the most competent cap rocks in the North Sea. The area is geologically extremely stable and has retained gas and oil for 10-20 million years, the area constitutes a very safe permanent storage site for CO₂.
• In Phase 1, the Greensand Consortium demonstrated that viability of the development of a CO₂ storage site. The assessment was certified by DNV. The Storage potential is ½-1 million ton of CO₂ per year from 2025, increasing to 4-8 million tons of CO₂ per year by 2030. Hence, the Greensand Area can account for all of the CO₂ storage proposed in the Danish Climate Program.