INEOS Energy has officially launched Greensand, the EU's first operational offshore carbon storage site, at Esbjerg, Denmark, with support from Harbour Energy and the Danish North Sea Fund.
The facility will initially capture and store up to 400,000 tonnes of CO₂ annually, with potential to scale to 4–8 million tonnes at full capacity.
The facility will initially source CO₂ primarily from Danish biomethane plants, establishing a complete CCS value chain while industrial capture projects continue to develop. Captured CO₂ is liquefied and transported by truck to Port Esbjerg, then shipped aboard Carbon Destroyer 1—the EU's first purpose-built CO₂ carrier—before injection into the Nini West reservoir, a depleted oil field approximately 250 kilometres offshore.
The EU has set targets to store 50 million tonnes of CO₂ annually by 2030, rising to 250–280 million tonnes by 2040. Greensand's expansion is designed to receive CO₂ from industrial emitters across Europe as capture capacity scales.
INEOS Energy CEO David Bucknall said the facility "provides a foundation on which future Carbon Capture projects across Europe can now build."
