EnEarth, a carbon storage company and subsidiary of UK-based E&P firm, Energean, has been awarded a €120 million grant to develop a liquefied CO2 receiving terminal at Prinos Carbon Storage, Greece’s first carbon storage site.
The funding has been awarded under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), which has allocated nearly €1.25 billion to cross-border energy infrastructure projects within the EU to date. This is in conjunction with additional funding from the Greek Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), which has contributed €150 million.
Prinos Carbon Storage is located at the Prinos oil and gas field in the northern Aegean Sea. The project is expected to offer an annual storage capacity of up to three million tonnes of CO2, which EnEarth estimates is sufficient to abate approximately 25% of Greece’s industrial emissions.
Recognised by the European Commission as a Project of Common Interest, Prinos Carbon Storage will receive and store carbon that has been captured at industrial sites across the EU. It will assist hard-to-abate sectors in achieving EU emissions goals by storing CO2 that has been derived from direct air capture (DAC) technologies, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), and carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems onboard ships.
Given the growing significance of CCS in the maritime energy transition, offshore carbon storage infrastructure will provide shipowners and operators with a viable compliance pathway in light of tightening carbon regulations. The maritime sector will be able to capture and store its hard-to-abate emissions in the Aegean, while playing a key role in transporting captured CO2 from industrial sites to the Prinos LCO2 receiving terminal.
In June 2024, EnEarth announced its partnership with Prime Marine, a diversified shipping company, to facilitate the transportation of CO2 captured from various emissions sources in the Mediterranean to the Prinos saline aquifer.
Nikolas Tigas, Head of Carbon Storage at EnEarth, stated: ‘We are proud to be playing a leading role in helping Greece, the South-Eastern Mediterranean region and the EU reach their decarbonisation goals, building a new green industrial transition hub in Northern Greece, that will further support the local economy. Prinos CO2 will allow the north of Greece to play a leading role in the green future of Europe”’
EnEarth submitted its formal CO2 storage licence application to the Hellenic Hydrocarbons and Energy Resources Management Company (EDEYEP) in June 2024 and is currently awaiting final regulatory approval for the Prinos CO2 receiving facility.
The development phase of the project will involve market testing and the creation of partnerships with maritime stakeholders interested in CO2 transportation solutions. If successful, Prinos Carbon Storage could catalyse investment in CO2 shipping and storage infrastructure, and improve the resilience of the maritime carbon value chain in alignment with EU climate targets.
