The Dutch Emissions Authority (NEA) has issued an emission permit to the €1.3bn Porthos Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) project, which will store approximately 2.5 MtCO2/year in depleted natural gas fields under the North Sea from 2026 onwards.
The Porthos project is led by a joint venture of the European Business and Innovation Centre Network (EBN, a pan-European association of business support organisations), the Dutch gas group Gasunie, and the Port of Rotterdam Authority, which has secured a storage permit from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy (EZK) and made a final investment decision (FID) in October 2023. The Porthos project aims at transporting and storing CO2 from industrial processes of companies in the Rotterdam port area into former natural gas fields off the coast of South Holland.
Other CCS projects are under consideration in the Netherlands, including the Aramis project (CO2 stored in several smaller gas fields in the North Sea). The Netherlands is also collaborating with Norway on the Northern Lights project, in which CO2 is transported by ship to Norwegian rock salt formations.