The EUR1.3 billion (US$1.38bn) Porthos carbon capture use and storage project at the Port of Rotterdam has been approved after the project’s developers took the Final Investment Decision (FID) on the mega-project on 18 October. The offshore CCUS project is the first project of its kind to be developed in the Netherlands.

The CCUS project, the Port of Rotterdam CO2 Transport Hub and Offshore Storage project (Porthos) is being developed by a consortium including Energy Beheer Nederland, Gasunie and the Port of Rotterdam.

The project is intended to store an annual amount of 2.5 million tonnes of CO2 from industry in empty gas fields beneath the North Sea from 2026 over a 15 year operational life, sequestering around 37 million tonnes of CO2 in total. The onshore transport system under construction allows for future CO2 storage projects.

The project will provide transport and storage services to several companies in the port of Rotterdam, including Air Liquide, Air Products, ExxonMobil, and Shell. These companies will invest in their own capture installations to supply CO2 to Porthos.