Athos project popular with potential partners
Athos, the joint project set up by Gasunie, EBN, Port of Amsterdam and Tata Steel for carbon capture, transport, utilisation and storage in the North Sea Canal region, put out a call for potential customers and carbon storage partners in November 2019
and received a very pleasing number of responses.
The Athos feasibility study showed that there are no technical obstacles standing in the way of carbon capture, utilisation and storage. Having ascertained this, the project organisers assessed the interest of various parties in taking part in the project using two different requests.
The Request for Information (RFI) was intended to collect information about suitable locations for carbon storage 3 to 5km under the Dutch North Sea and about the provision of associated services.
The various responses give Athos a positive basis for development of the CCUS project and follow-up studies on storage locations.
The Expression of Interest (EoI) asked which parties would like to use the planned carbon transport and storage network. Respondents included both parties who want to supply carbon for storage and parties wanting to purchase carbon for use.
Athos’ project organisers are delighted with the large number of responses and will take these into consideration during the rest of the research phase, which is currently ongoing and involves investigation of the various options for storage locations, infrastructure and connections.
Carbon utilisation and storage is one of the few ways that the industrial sector can significantly reduce its carbon emissions in the short term at a relatively low cost, so CCUS is a crucial element in achieving the targets set out in the Dutch Climate Agreement. Athos can play a key role here.