(CercleFinance.com) – Air Liquide announced on Monday that it has obtained funding from the European Union for the construction of infrastructure to transport, liquefy and load CO2 onto ships for permanent storage. at sea.
The European Commission has granted Air Liquide, Fluxys and the Port of Antwerp-Bruges aid of €144.6 million as part of the project, which aims to build joint facilities for the transport and export of CO2.
The CO2 captured on the sites of the industrial actors of the port platform of Antwerp will be collected and transported via a network of intra-port pipelines with free access.
This project represents the first phase of Antwerp@C, an initiative bringing together Air Liquide, BASF, Borealis, ExxonMobil, Ineos, TotalEnergies, Fluxys and the port of Antwerp-Bruges.
The objective is to halve CO2 emissions on the Antwerp platform by 2030.
Air Liquide and BASF will be the first customers of the export platform, which will have an initial export capacity of 2.5 million tonnes per year (mtpa), with the ambition to reach up to 10 mtpa by 2030.
Air Liquide emphasizes that the Brussels grant is a major step towards the final investment decision, expected in 2023.