Multinational chemical conglomerate INEOS has completed the pilot phase of the world’s first cross-border carbon capture and storage (CCS) project, successfully transporting CO₂ from the INEOS oxide factory in Belgium to the Danish North Sea.

Launched in 2021 and codenamed Project Greensand, the pilot united a consortium of 23 Danish and international companies, startups, and research institutes in an effort to capture and liquify CO_2,  and ship it in containers to be stored in sandstone in a reservoir in Nini West, a depleted oil field 1,800m below the North Sea seabed.

Mads Gade, the country manager at INEOS Denmark, said: “We now have documentation that we have a well-functioning storage for CO₂ in the North Sea subsoil, where large amounts of CO₂ that would otherwise have been emitted into the atmosphere can be safely and permanently stored.”

The next phase of the project will involve specialist ships carrying up to 1.5m t/y of CO₂ to the Nini Main field. The CO₂ will be transferred via a pumping system to a platform at Nini, before being pumped into the sandstone reservoirs through new CO₂ injection wells.

By 2030, Project Greensand will expand beyond Nini to the neighbouring Siri oil field, where 8m t/y of CO₂ is expected to be stored.