The Danish shipping and transport services firm, Blue Water Shipping, has partnered with the Dutch shipowner Royal Wagenborg to transport CO2 to North Sea storage sites as part of the INEOS-led Project Greensand Future carbon capture and storage (CCS) initiative.
Following the final investment decision taken in December 2024, Blue Water Shipping and Royal Wagenborg have announced their collaboration to facilitate the transportation of liquefied CO2 from Blue Water’s headquarters in Esbjerg, Denmark, to carbon storage sites in the North Sea as part of Project Greensand Future.
The Project aims to transport CO2 captured at industrial sites in Europe to Greensand’s sequestration site, Nini field, a depleted oil field in the North Sea off the coast of Denmark. With this initiative, the INEOS-led consortium is seeking to become the European Union’s first operational CO2 storage facility by 2025/26.
Blue Water and Wagenborg’s contribution to the Project will involve the development and delivery of a CO2 carrier capable of large-scale transportation of liquefied CO2 to offshore storage sites. The vessel’s design is based on the “EasyMax” concept, developed by Wagenborg and Royal Niestern Sander, which features a low CO2 footprint per tonne of cargo and recently topped the global Energy Efficiency Design Index. It will be built at the Royal Niestern Sander shipyard in the Netherlands, with completion anticipated by the end of 2025.
The first phase of Project Greensand aims to store up to 400,000 metric tonnes of CO2 per year, with the annual storage capacity expected to increase to 8 million metric tonnes as the project develops.
Søren Gammelgaard Nielsen, Head of Projects at Blue Water, commented on the collaboration: “This is a pioneering solution for a pioneering project. It demonstrates how local expertise can contribute to global sustainability efforts. 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.”
