Yara starts Europe’s largest CO₂ capture system

Yara International has started carbon capture operations at its ammonia production site in Sluiskil, the Netherlands. The company describes the facility as the largest of its kind in Europe. It is designed to capture and liquefy up to 800 thsd tons of CO₂ per year.

The captured CO₂ volumes will be exempt from carbon costs under the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), helping reduce the carbon-related costs of ammonia production. The nearest December EU ETS allowances are currently valued at around €84.15 per ton of CO₂.

The project is the first large-scale cross-border industrial CO₂ capture and permanent storage chain in Europe. After liquefaction, the CO₂ will be temporarily stored in Sluiskil before being transported by specialized vessels to Norway, where it will be injected about 2.6 km beneath the North Sea seabed.

Yara estimates that the system will capture and permanently store around 12 mln tons of CO₂ over 15 years. The company expects the project to reduce the carbon footprint of its production and support supplies of lower-carbon products to agriculture and other industries.

CO₂ storage will be provided by Norway’s Northern Lights project, which currently has capacity of 1.5 mln tons per year. Capacity is expected to increase to 5 mln tons per year from 2028, allowing the facility to receive additional CO₂ volumes from European industrial plants.

Tags: EU