Blue Water and Royal Wagenborg have agreed to collaborate on Europe’s first operational CO2 storage facility. They will be doing this through a purpose-modified CO2 carrier for the INEOS-led CCS project.

This project will focus on facilitating the large-scale marine transport of liquid CO2 to the Greensand Future storage site which is located within the Danish North Sea. Doing this will mean that this facility will become the first operational CO2 storage facility within the European Union.

To make this project possible, the companies have chosen to use a specialised vessel design which has significant intake and comes with a requirement for station keeping abilities. It was Blue Water who suggested Royal Wagenborg to become this key role and they did this through building a purpose-modified CO2 carrier for the Greensand future project. The vessel has been modeled on Wagenborg’s award-winning Easymax design and it highlights a huge step forwards for the development of CCS marine transport within Europe.

During operations the vessel will be able to secure large-scale marine transport of liquid CO2 from Esbjerg. This is where Blue Water’s headquarters are located and from this point, the vessel will travel to the Greensand Future site, based in the Nini field in the Danish North Sea. It will travel here as this is the site that will be used for safe and permanent storage.

The dedicated CO2 carrier which will make this possible, will be built by Wagenborg’s own shipyard Royal Niestern Sander, which is located in the Netherlands. This dedicated CO2 carrier is expected to be ready by the end of 2025. To start with, it has been planned that the project will have the ability to store 400,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year and this capacity is anticipated to rise to eight million tonnes every year.

Head of Projects at Blue Water, Søren Gammelgaard Nielsen, commented, "It's a pioneering solution for a pioneering project. This solution demonstrates how local expertise can contribute to global sustainability efforts."

Director Wagenborg Offshore, Edwin de Vries, mentioned, “We are grateful to Blue Water for enabling the partnership between Wagenborg and INEOS and look forward to continuing this cooperation in the near future.”

Mr Nielsen, continued, "This project represents our 'Together We Create Solutions' mindset, combining advanced engineering with a collaborative approach. It required pushing boundaries to find the right solution. We're proud of the result and look forward to seeing the vessel owned and operated by Wagenborg become an integral part of INEOS’ Greensand Future project.”