Port of Rotterdam Authority, Dutch natural gas infrastructure and transportation company Gasunie and Energie Beheer Nederland (EBN) are preparing a CCUS (Carbon Capture Usage and Storage) project, in which CO₂ from industry will be transported to storage sites in depleted gas fields deep beneath the North Sea seabed.
The three companies are working together on the preparation of this project under the name Porthos: Port of Rotterdam CO₂ Transport Hub & Offshore Storage.
The Porthos project is being developed as an open access transport and storage infrastructure which can be used by multiple parties to store CO₂.
A so-called Expression of Interest process has been launched in order to obtain a clear picture of which companies are interested to become a customer, and when and how much CO₂ they are willing and able to supply. Companies can express their interest before 1 April 2019.
The Expression of Interest process is part of the preparations for the Porthos project. A decision about the realisation of the Porthos project is expected to be taken in the course of 2020.
CCUS is already successfully utilised at a number of locations around the world – most of them outside Europe. Previous initiatives in the Netherlands were all called off. The reason why this new project is considered particularly promising is that it concerns the storage of CO₂ in the North Sea seabed (opposed to land, as had been suggested for a site near Barendrecht).
On top of this, the CO₂ is generated by industrial companies (rather than coal-fired power plants, as was the case in the recently-cancelled ROAD initiative) that lack fully circular or biobased alternatives in the short term. All parties involved are aware that in the realisation of this project, gaining broad public support is just as vital as technical, financial and economic aspects.