Following a recommendation by the Danish Energy Agency (DEA), the Danish Ministry of Climate, Energy and Utilities has approved the award of three licences for exploration of full-scale CO2 storage in the Danish North Sea, to TotalEnergies (two licences) and a consortium of INEOS E&P and Wintershall DEA (one licence). Nordsøfonden will participate with a share of 20% in each of the coming new licences on behalf of the Danish state. The licences cover areas in depleted oil and gas fields and unexplored saline aquifers. Exploration licences will have a 6-year term but can be extended for up to 30 years for storage operations if a suitable location for CO2 storage is found.
TotalEnergies' licences include the Harald gas fields, currently operated by the group, which is already assessing CO2 storage opportunities within the framework of the Bifrost project, as well as a saline aquifer. The Bifrost CCS project, led in partnership with Noreco, Nordsøfonden, Ørsted and the Technical University of Denmark, could store more than 5 MtCO2/year by 2030.
In December 2022, the DEA granted permission to INEOS and Wintershall for a time- and quantity-limited injection of CO2 into the former Nini West oil field that is converted into the Greensand Pilot Injection project (until 1 April 2023). The project is part of the EUDP-supported "Project Greensand Phase 2 – Enabling environmentally safe and long-term storage of CO2 by 2025," which aims to generate the necessary knowledge to subsequently deliver a storage capacity of up to 1.5 MtCO2/year from 2025 in the Nini field. The project CCS capacity could later be raised to 8 Mt/year (by 2030).
According to the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), the Danish subsurface is particularly suitable for CO2 storage, both offshore and onshore, with a potential to store up to 22 GtCO2. In May 2022, the DEA launched the first phase of its CCUS tender, aimed to support CCS projects of a minimum of 0.4 Mt/year of CO2 from 2025 (for the first phase of pool implementation).