As part of a cooperation with various partners and affiliated partners for the Project of Common Interest (PCI) EU2NSEA, a position paper was published in December 2023 describing the climate protection effects and positive economic impacts of German and cross-border CCS clusters.

The position paper, with sub-projects in Germany involving Equinor, Heidelberg Materials, Lhoist, Onyx Power, OGE, SCHWENK Building Materials Group, Uniper, VNG and Wintershall Dea, can be viewed at the following link:

CCS as a building block for a competitive climate-neutral industry in Germany and Europe

What is the EU2NSEA project

The EU2NSEA project aims to develop a scalable pipeline-based system for the transport and storage of anthropogenic and biogenic CO₂ from Europe to the North Sea.

The aim is to ensure the reliability and safety of CO₂ transport while enabling significant cost reductions. The development of CO₂ capture, transport, and storage networks at a European level is to be accelerated. The Norwegian energy company Equinor (as PCI coordinator), the Belgian energy infrastructure operator Fluxys, and the German energy company Wintershall Dea are jointly developing a cross-border CO₂ network infrastructure together with partner companies.

The scope of the EU2NSEA project encompasses open infrastructure components along the entire CCS value chain:

• Capture, transport, and permanent geological storage of CO₂. Industrial emission sources in industry clusters across eight EU member states (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Latvia, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden) capture CO₂ and prepare it for onward transport.
• CO₂ collection networks in five EU member states (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands) and Switzerland connect the industry clusters to two central CO₂ export terminals. This combines onshore pipelines with facilities for receiving liquid CO₂ by ship or train, as well as compression and liquefaction plants for further cross-border transport to the North Sea.
• CO₂ export terminals in Zeebrugge (Belgium) and Wilhelmshaven (Germany) collect the CO₂ volumes and prepare them for further cross-border transport to the North Sea using appropriate processing and compression facilities.
• High-pressure pipelines specifically optimized for CO₂ transport connect the export terminals in Zeebrugge (Belgium) and Wilhelmshaven (Germany) with storage sites in the North Sea (Norway); in parallel, flexible CO₂ transport by ship can take place if needed.
• Storage sites in the North Sea (Norway) for the permanently safe geological storage of CO₂.

Intermediate storage capacities in the form of cavern storage facilities create the necessary flexibility to operate a resilient infrastructure system. The structure of the project enables flexible future expansions to additional CO2 sources, collection centers, and storage sites, in order to support emitters across all of northwest Europe in decarbonizing their processes on a large scale within this decade.