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King Frederik X of Denmark formally opened the Greensand carbon capture and storage project at the Port of Esbjerg on 18 September 2026.
Carbon dioxide is shipped to the depleted Nini West oil field in the Danish North Sea and injected about 1,800 metres below the seabed.
Greensand is the first full-scale CO2 storage site and the first complete CO2 storage value chain to enter operation inside the European Union.
Phase one will store 400,000 tonnes of CO2 a year, with operator INEOS Energy aiming for 4-8 million tonnes a year by 2030.
India has no operating storage site of this kind; NITI Aayog's 2022 CCUS report projects about 750 million tonnes a year of capture by 2050.
Energy arm of the INEOS chemicals group; leads and operates the Greensand project
Oil and gas producer; partner in the Greensand joint venture
Denmark's state-owned participant in North Sea oil, gas and now CO2 storage licences
Approved the Greensand storage permit in 2025 and sets the EU's CO2 injection-capacity target
Released India's study report on a CCUS policy framework and deployment mechanism in November 2022
The EU law governing geological storage of carbon dioxide; storage sites such as Greensand must be permitted under it.
Sets a Union-wide objective of 50 million tonnes a year of operational CO2 injection capacity by 2030, and makes EU oil and gas producers individually responsible for a pro-rata share of it.
Legally binds Denmark to cut greenhouse gas emissions 70% by 2030 against 1990 levels and to reach net zero by 2050; CCS is one of the instruments relied on.
The North Sea is a shallow north-eastern arm of the Atlantic Ocean lying between the British Isles and north-western Europe. It is bordered by Great Britain to the south-west and west, the Orkney and Shetland islands to the north-west, Norway to the north-east, Denmark to the east, Germany and the Netherlands to the south-east, and Belgium and France to the south. It opens to the Atlantic through the English Channel and reaches the Baltic Sea through the Kattegat and Skagerrak straits. The Thames, Humber, Forth, Rhine, Meuse, Scheldt, Ems, Weser and Elbe drain into it, and its seabed holds major petroleum and natural gas reserves along with one of Europe's most productive fisheries. Greensand sits in its Danish sector, with the shipping terminal at Esbjerg on Denmark's west coast.
The study report on a 'Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage Policy Framework and its Deployment Mechanism in India' estimates about 750 million tonnes a year of capture by 2050 and treats CCUS as the route to decarbonising hard-to-abate sectors such as steel, cement and refining.
India has committed to net zero by 2070; its updated NDC targets a 45% cut in emission intensity of GDP by 2030 against 2005 levels and 50% of installed electricity capacity from non-fossil sources.
The NITI Aayog report highlights converting captured CO2 into green urea, building materials, methanol and ethanol, polymers and enhanced oil recovery - the 'U' that separates CCUS from plain CCS.
GS Paper 3 > Environment > Climate change mitigation and conservation technologies
General Awareness > Environment and current affairs
Consider the following countries: 1. Finland 2. Germany 3. Norway 4. Russia How many of the above countries have a border with the North Sea?
Answer: Only two
Capturing CO2 at source or from the air, transporting it and injecting it into deep geological formations for permanent storage.
Re-using an emptied oil or gas field, whose geology has already proved it can trap fluids for millions of years, as a CO2 store.
Upgraded biogas; the CO2 stripped out during upgrading is a concentrated, low-cost source of capturable carbon dioxide.