“We’re very pleased to award contracts to Larvik Shipping and Brevik Engineering covering conceptual studies for transporting CO₂ by ship,” says Gassco CEO Frode Leversund.

“These companies provided the best tenders out of the five submitted. Further assessments of CO₂ transport will make an important contribution to realising a full-scale Norwegian solution for carbon capture and storage (CCS).”

Plans envisage CO₂ being shipped by sea from capture facilities in eastern Norway to intermediate storage on the west coast. The greenhouse gas would then be piped to a subterranean store.

The Smeaheia area of the North Sea, located east of the Troll field and about 50 kilometres from land, has been chosen as the final storage site.

“Larvik Shipping and Brevik Engineering will now plan such transport in greater detail and with more exact cost estimates,” Leversund explains.

“Both companies submitted good tenders, and we’re now looking forward to developing a detailed decision base for the government.

“CCS, including a transport leg, could be an important part of the solution for cutting industry emissions, and will help to meet the goals of the Paris agreement.”

Work done at the idea stage in 2015 and in last year’s feasibility study shows that ship transfer will be flexible and appropriate in a start-up phase, with long transport distances and limited CO₂ volumes.

If desirable, the vessels would be able to fetch the gas from other ports and the system can be scaled up with additional ships if the transport requirement increases.

The conceptual study is due to be completed in the autumn, with the decision base for the whole full-scale project scheduled for the autumn of 2018. That would allow the Storting (parliament) to take a possible investment decision in the spring of 2019.

Gassco has been commissioned by the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy to clarify the basis for ship transport of CO2 from the capture sites to the storage point. Gassnova, the state-owned company for CCS projects, is responsible for incorporating this work into a complete CCS chain together with studies of capture and storage facilities. It recently awarded contracts for further studies of full-scale carbon capture to Oslo’s Klemetsrud incineration plant, Norcem and Yara. The company is also due to enter into a contract with the storage operator before the summer.

Source: Gassco