European oil and gas company Wintershall Dea (Wintershall) has joined the UK’s Poseidon carbon capture and storage (CCS) project after acquiring a ten percent stake in the licence from Carbon Catalyst, which won the license along with project operator Perenco as part of the UK’s first carbon dioxide (CO2) storage licensing round.
As one of the UK’s largest CO2 transportation and storage projects, Poseidon boasts a future total annual storage capacity of up to 40m tonnes and is scheduled to begin operations by 2029.
The project is expected to connect a range of CO2 emitters across the East and Southeast of England, resulting in the permanent geological storage of approximately one billion tonnes of CO2.
The captured CO2 will be taken from the Perenco-operated Bacton Gas Terminal to the offshore Poseidon storage site, about 65km off the coast from Bacton in the UK Southern North Sea.
Commenting on the announcement, Hugo Dijkgraaf, CTO and Executive Board Member at Wintershall, said, “We are proud to expand our presence in the country and contribute to the UK’s efforts in achieving a Net Zero future.”
“Through our involvement in this project, we are further growing our expertise in the CCS field and reconfirming our efforts to decarbonise European industries.”
Holding stakes in five offshore CCS licences in three North Sea countries, Wintershall contributes to the Wilhelmshaven energy hub on the German North Sea coast through the BlueHyNow and CO2nnectNow projects.
“As an expert E&P company with over 60 years of experience in the North Sea and our growing CCS expertise from projects in Norway and Denmark, Wintershall Dea can contribute valuable subsurface and technical knowledge to this outstanding project,” enthused Matthias Pfeiffer, Country Lead UK for Carbon Management & Hydrogen at Wintershall.
Alongside Equinor, Wintershall aims to develop the NOR-GE pipeline to connect continental European industry clusters and suitable CO2 storage sites in the North Sea.
Earlier this year, the company joined forces with INEOS to inject the first quantities of CO2 from a Belgian emitter in the depleted Nini West oil field in the Danish North Sea.
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