Fortum, TVO and Maersk join forces

Finnish utilities Fortum and Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) have entered into co-operation with Maersk Oil and Maersk Tankers, part of the Danish A.P. Moller – Maersk Group, aiming to develop a joint carbon emissions abatement project in the area of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS).
The partners wish to combine carbon capture at the Meri-Pori power plant with CO2 transportation by Maersk Tankers’ vessels and geological storage. Maersk Oil will investigate the possibility of providing final CO2 storage in the depleting oil and gas fields of the Danish North Sea, as well as the potential use of CO2 for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). The aim is to capture, transport and store in excess of 1.2 million tonnes CO2 per year. Fortum and TVO have previously selected Siemens Energy as the CO2-capture technology partner for the project.
Subject to successful project development, the project will seek qualification for funding under the European Union’s CCS Demonstration Programme. The selection for this funding is expected to take place in 2011 and the final investment decision in 2011-2012. The project aims to be in operation by 2015.
“CCS has the potential to become one of the key solutions in climate change mitigation. Maersk’s solid experience with sea transport and oil production in the North Sea, combined with the power plant expertise of Fortum, TVO and Siemens, make the project a very strong candidate for demonstrating CCS technology”, says Tapio Kuula President and CEO of Fortum.
“Shipping CO2 in tanker vessels is a cost efficient and flexible way to get CO2 from power plants to offshore storage sites, which makes it a suitable solution for large CO2 emission sources such as coal-fired power plants, especially in the emerging phase of CCS,” says Søren Skou, CEO of Maersk Tankers and member of the A.P. Moller – Maersk Group’s Executive Board.
“We believe CCS technology and enhanced oil recovery based on CO2 have the potential to become key solutions to the energy security and the climate change challenges currently facing Europe. By actively partnering in such innovative projects we now step up our efforts of investigation as to whether these technologies are viable and sustainable solutions, on which future business can be developed”, says Jakob Bo Thomasen, CEO of Maersk Oil and member of the A.P. Moller – Maersk Group’s Executive Board.
The coal-fired power plant is located at Pori on the west coast of Finland and has an installed capacity of 565 MW. The CCS demonstration is planned to process approximately 50 percent of the plant’s flue gas and to capture 90 percent of the CO2 it contains with Siemens’ proprietary post-combustion capture technology. Therefore it reduces CO2 emissions in excess of 1.2 million tonnes annually. Meri-Pori's CCS demonstration is among the largest post-combustion capture projects yet announced in Europe, the first to combine shipping, cross border transportation between two EU countries and enhanced oil recovery options.
Maersk Tankers already has the blueprints to build tanker vessels for the transport of CO2 from emission sources to storage sites. The vessels will be semi-pressurised and semi-refrigerated, keeping the CO2 liquid. Maersk Tankers has designed the vessels, based on years of experience with transportation of liquefied petrochemicals and natural gas, and in accordance with global standards.
As an oil and gas company with in-depth experience of safely and efficiently managing extraction from geological formations, Maersk Oil has the necessary knowledge and expertise required to implement CO2 storage in depleting offshore oil and gas fields. On this basis Maersk Oil is in the process of identifying suitable offshore sites in the North Sea for CO2 storage and EOR.

(Source: Transport Weekly)