Consortium lets drilling contract for North Sea Greensand carbon storage

The Nini Joint Venture, operated by INEOS Oil & Gas Denmark and Wintershall Dea AS, has entered a framework agreement with Maersk Drilling for Phase 2 of the Greensand offshore Denmark carbon storage project. The agreement confirms Maersk Drilling as the preferred contractor with a right to all drilling rig work involved in Project Greensand on market-rate terms until end 2027.

Project Greensand is the most mature carbon capture and storage project inside Danish jurisdiction and targets the development of capacity to permanently store up to 8 million tonnes/year of CO₂ from 2030, potentially accounting for all the CO₂ storage proposed in the Danish Climate Program as presented by the Danish government in 2020. The CO₂ will be captured onshore and transported to sea to be injected into discontinued oil and gas reservoirs beneath the Danish North Sea.

In Greensand Phase 1, the four initial consortium partners including Maersk Drilling demonstrated the conceptual feasibility of developing an offshore CO₂ storage site at Nini West field. The assessment was independently certified by the DNV classification society. Following the successful completion of Phase 1, Greensand Phase 2 was announced in August 2021 (OGJ Online, Aug. 17, 2021).

Phase 2 will be a pilot where the first on-site injection test into the offshore Nini West reservoir is expected to commence at end 2022. The goal is to have the first fully operational injection wells with an annual injection capacity of 0.5-1.5 million tonnes CO₂ ready in 2025, pending final investment decision and regulatory implementation of the agreements outlined in the December 2020 Danish North Sea Agreement.