Wintershall Dea acquires 10% stake in UK Poseidon CCS project
(WO) – Wintershall Dea has entered a second carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in the United Kingdom. The company joins the Poseidon CCS project after acquiring a 10% stake in the license from Carbon Catalyst. The license was awarded to Perenco and Carbon Catalyst as part of the UK’s first CO2 storage licensing round. Perenco is the designated operator of the project, while Carbon Catalyst and Wintershall Dea will now hold non-operated positions in it.
Poseidon is among the largest CO2 transportation & storage projects in the UK. It is scheduled to be operational by 2029, with a total annual storage capacity of up to 40 million tonnes in its full development stage. It envisages the permanent geological storage of approximately one billion tonnes of CO2.
The project is expected to connect a wide range of CO2 emitters across the East and Southeast of England and has the potential to significantly decarbonize the area. The CO2 is planned to be transported via the Perenco-operated Bacton Gas Terminal to the offshore ‘Poseidon’ storage site. The carbon storage license is located in the UK Southern North Sea, about 65 km off the coast from Bacton in the county of Norfolk. It covers the geological structures of the Leman gas field and offers a combination of depleted reservoirs and saline aquifers suitable for safe and permanent carbon storage.
"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,” said Matthias Pfeiffer, Country Lead UK for Carbon Management & Hydrogen at Wintershall Dea.
In total, Wintershall Dea has stakes in five offshore CCS licenses in three North Sea countries. Furthermore, with the two projects BlueHyNow and CO2nnectNow, Wintershall Dea contributes to the ENERGY HUB Wilhelmshaven on the German North Sea coast. Together with Equinor, the company plans to develop the NOR-GE pipeline to connect continental European industry clusters and suitable CO2 storage sites in the North Sea.
As one of the leading members of the Greensand consortium, in March 2023, together with INEOS, Wintershall Dea successfully demonstrated the first full cross-border CCS value chain in Europe. For the pilot injection, first quantities of CO2 from a Belgian emitter were safely stored in the depleted Nini West oil field in the Danish North Sea.
Lead image: Wintershall Dea
